
Glass. 
Book. 






o 



/ G>07 7 



TIIK 



ROUND TOWERS 



IRELAND; 



THE MYSTERIES OF FREEMASONRY, OF S/YBAISM, 
AND OF BUDHISM, 

FOR THE FIRST TIME UNVEILED. 

" PRIZE ESSAY" OF THE ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY, ENLARGED, 
AND EMBELLISHED WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS. 



HENRY O'BRIEN, Esq. A.B. 




" Hie sacra, hie genus, hie majorum multa vestigia." 

Cicero. 
" were of fame, 
And had been glorious in another day." 

Byron 1 . 



L ONDON: 

WHITTAKER AND CO., AVE-MARiA LANE; 

AND 1 HUMMING, DUBLIN. 



^ ( 



LONDON : 

Printed by William Clowbs, 

Duke Street, l-amSetl.. 



TO 

THE LEARNED OF EUROPE, 

TO THE HEADS OF ITS SEVERAL UNIVERSITIES, 

TO THE TEACHERS OF RELIGION AND THE LOVERS OF HISTORY, 

MORE ESPECIALLY 

TO THE ALIBENISTIC ORDER OF FREEMASONS, 

TO THE FELLOWS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY, 

TO THE MEMBERS OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY, 

TO THE FELLOWS OF THE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUARIES, 

TO THE EDITORS OF THE ARCHSOLOGIA SCOTICA, 

TO THE COMMITTEES OF THE SOCIETIES FOR THE PROPAGATION OF THE 
GOSPEL AND THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE, 

AND 

to the court of the honourable the east india company, 

this volume is inscribed, 

as a novel exposition of literary inquiries in which they 
are severally interested, 

and as an intimation of respect from 

The Author. 



PRE FACE. 



In Fraser's Magazine for the month just expired, there 
has appeared an article headed the " Arcana of Free- 
masonry," which will save me the trouble of an 
introductory dissertation. The style is quaint, but 
that will be overlooked : its author is evidently a true 
mason and a good man ; and initiated, as he is, in all 
the fundamentals of his fraternity, he will be the 
more ready to recognize the truth of my disclosures, 
as well as to admit the originality of the proofs which 
I adduce. To him, therefore, whoever he is, do I 
with confidence refer. 

" In the spirit of the mighty dead," says he, " the 
great ones of the earth, that seem ever and anon to 
look down through the clouds of this murky atmo- 
sphere, and to beckon us heavenward, nothing strikes 
more keenly, in our conviction, than that passion for 
divine truth which burned unquenchably within them. 
With what hallowed devotion they worshipped it, 
with what intense aspirations they loved it, we must 
remember but too painfully, when we converse with 
men as they are, and read the writings they applaud. 

" Yes — it must be so ! The first and noblest object 



VI PREFACE. 

to which the ambition of man can aspire is the dis- 
covery and propagation of truth, on which the felicity 
of all created thinkers absolutely depends ; and, for- 
tunately, the glory of its discovery is nothing superior 
to the joy of its communication. And therefore have 
the finest and freest souls, that have caught the 
brightest glimpses of truth's eternal radiation, ever 
most earnestly sought to lead their brethren and 
kindred to the same difficult and solitary height from 
which they themselves first witnessed the dawnings 
of the prophetic dayspring. 

" How many illustrious names, however venerable, 
have from time's eldest records sought out with in- 
defatio-able assiduity the relics of divinest Wisdom ! 
How often beneath her charmed inspirations they 
wandered forth, exulting over the boundless fields of 
metaphysical and physical science — endeavouring by 
the things that are manifest to retrace the hidden 
Divinity — to look through nature up to nature's God ! 
And if happily they discover some strange and stir- 
ring indications of the Almighty's elaborating hand, 
or some bright testimony of his vivifying?, though im- 
palpable Spirit, have they not hastened with glowing 
hearts, and souls overcharged with adoration, to whis- 
per the mystery in secret, or to proclaim the marvel 
to the world ? 

" The history of Freemasonry being, in fact, the 
history of the gradual progression of devotion and 
philosophy in the youth, maturity, and declension oi' 
our planets millenary circle, i;> intensely interesting 



PREFACE. Vll 

to the philosophic mind, as the ages of the one have 
a thousand mystic correspondences with the ages of 
the other. After taking a luminous survey of the 
advances of human intelligence, as revealed in Scrip- 
ture, it traces the perpetual tradition of divine wisdom 
among the hierophantic academies of classic me- 
morial. None understand so well the essential truth 
of their theo- astrological mythologies and their sym- 
bolical mysteries. They track every subtle declension 
of lofty and bright-souled truth into the shadowy 
circumference of hostile error; and thus, establishing 
their minds on the deepest foundations of history, 
they continually build up superstructures of all that 
is precious in literature or elegant in art. 

" In thus eulogising Freemasons, we, of course, 
allude to Freemasons initiated into the deep spirit of 
divine philosophy, and not mere nominal professors. 
True masons, — those who are m-a.de free by their free 
devotion to God's spiritual service, and accepted by 
emulating the self-immolation of their celestial proto- 
type of heaven and earth for just and disciplined 
worthies, — we would discourse of these and these 
alone. ,It would be "as unfair to judge of Freemasonry 
in its hidden sanctuary within the veil, by its irregular 
members, as to judge of its religious illustration with- 
out the veil by merely nominal Christians. 

"■ But for true, or free, or speculative masons. These 
are the men who, attached to their celestial Saviour 
with filial enthusiasm incommunicable, and to each 
other by fraternal sympathies that melt them into 



Vlll PREFACE. 

beautiful unanimity of immortal emulation ; these are 
the men who feel a more especial and endearing in- 
terest in the whole history of mankind. To them, 
whatever is ' wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best,' in 
all the records of humanity, hath a kind of kindred 
familiarity of association unknown to others ; for in 
all true men they recognize their ancestry or their 
brotherhood, and they watch the broad line of their 
genealogical descent with the reverent fondness of a 
lineal and loyal progeny. In their history they love 
to contemplate the magnificent economy of Providence 
for the gradual perfectionising of all lapsed intelli- 
gences. In this they view every variation of churches 
and states with tranquil and unbroken satisfaction, 
and from it they look forward to the future with that 
fine, free, and fearless confidence which Christian 
philosophy alone inspires. 

" In the present times, these relations to society 
have assumed a somewhat deeper and still more 
thrilling intensitv ; they know well enough that old 
age hath come upon the earth, and that the latter day 
is at hand ; and that the prophecies relating to her 
dissolution and bright regeneration are, ere long, to 
be accomplished in their fulness. 

" They confess, with rejoicing, the vast spread of 
intellectual light and freedom that now gilds t&e con- 
cluding pages of our planet's history. They belienifl 
that t!ie true and venerable principles of church and 
si;ilc will be confirmed and illustrated in their breadth 
.ind length, and height ami depth, by the last and 



PREFACE. IX 

prophetic experience of pious and patriot sages, 
ere the kindling judgment breaks out upon the asto- 
nished world. 

" Such is the position of Freemasons in society at 
present. And when we consider the extent of this 
chosen band of good and wise men, bound together 
by the fellowship of indissoluble benevolence, and 
scattered over every kingdom and republic, we cannot 
but observe their influences with peculiar scrutiny of 
attention ; for, by keeping fast their own counsel, and 
preserving mutual good faith, they ever possess a 
strong, though secret, domination of philanthropy 
over all the affairs of church and state. In her 
peaceful and inviolable retirement, Masonry is, as it 
were, the primum mobile and mainspring of society, — 
unseen herself, but urging the whole visible mechan- 
ism into harmonious and musical action. 

" In the present times, Freemasons cannot but feel 
that a terrible responsibility is committed to their 
charge. The ancient interests and ambitions of 
churches and states are coming into perpetual and 
jarring collision with the new. The ebb-tides of 
bigotry and despotism are clashing with the ad- 
vancing currents of enthusiasm and dissolute passion. 
The spray of the whirling eddies already whitens the 
deep, and the roar of the conflicting breakers is heard 
far away upon the wind. God saith, ' I will overturn, 
overturn, overturn, until He shall come whose right 
the kingdom is ;' and the sea and the waves are roar- 
ing upon every shore, and mens hearts fail them 



X PREFACE. 

for fear, and for looking on those thing's which are 
coming 1 on the earth. To true Masons is intrusted 
the hazardous charge of piloting the vessel athwart 
the boiling wnitlpools. They will save, if they can, 
earth's latest age from indecent strife and confusion, 
and struggle hard against the unfilial and disloval 
apostates, that would bring down her grey hairs with 
sorrow to the grave *." 

Here I would willingly close my introduction; but 
as it may seem strange that a work, which bears 
upon its title-page the character of " Prize Essay," 
should not have been published b}^ the Society that 
have awarded it the prize, I am obliged to open up a 
statement of facts which I had rather have concealed ; 
yet, in doing so, I shall take care, now that all vexa- 
tion has passed over, that no symptoms of asperity 
shall escape my pen ; all the colouring of language I 
shall equally avoid ; nay, even inferences, however 
obvious, I shall not press into observation, but confine 
myself strictly to a .matter-of-fact detail as to the 
conduct of the party in the case in question. 

In December, 1830, the Royal Irish Academy, after 
many fruitless efforts to obtain information on the 
subject of the Round Towers, proposed a premium of 

old medal and fifty pounds to the author of an 
approved Essay, in which all particulars respecting 
them were expected to be explained. This intimation 
I never saw'. The stipulated time for the composition 
of tre;iti>cs — viz., a full twelvemonth — expired, and 
* Eraser's Magazine, Nov. I, 1888. 



PREFACE. XI 

the several candidates sent in their works. After a 
perusal of two or three months, the Council agreed 
upon giving the premium to one of them ; but his work 
being deficient in some of the conditions required * 
it was furthermore resolved, that he should be allowed 
some additional interval for the supplying of these 
defects, and this determination they put into practice 
by the following advertisement : — 

" ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY HOUSE, 

"Dublin, February 21, 1832. 

" It having appeared to the Royal Irish Academy that none 
of the Essays given in on the subject of the ' Round Towers,' 
as advertised in December, 1830, have satisfied the conditions 
of the question, they have come to the following Resolutions : — 

"•' 1st. — That the question be advertised again as follows : — 

" ' The Royal Irish Academy hereby give notice that they 
will give a Premium of Fifty Pounds and the Gold Medal to 
the Author of an approved Essay on the Round Towers of 
Ireland, in which it is expected that the characteristic archi- 
tectural peculiarities belonging to all those ancient buildings 
now existing shall be noticed, and the uncertainty in which 
their origin and uses are involved be satisfactorily removed.' 

" 2nd. — That the time be extended to the 1st of June next, 
for receiving other Essays on said subject, and for allowing the 
Authors of the Essays already given in to enlarge and improve 

* The " characteristic architectural peculiarities" belonging to each 
of the Towera was the omission required to be supplied, and for this 
alone three months were extended. During that time I wrote my entire 
Essay, and of course did not omit this requisite. But as these could 
give no interest to the general reader, I have omitted them in the present 
enlarged form. If called for, however, I shall cheerfully supply them, 
as an Appendixto another work which may soon appear. 



Xll PREFACE. 

them; for which purpose they will be returned, on application 
at the Academy House. 

u All Essays, as usual, to be sent post-free to the Rev. 
J. H. Singer, D.D., Secretary, at the Academy House, 114, 
Grafton -street, Dublin ; each Essay being inscribed with some 
motto, and accompanied with a sealed billet, superscribed, with 
same motto, in which shall be written the author's name and 
address." 

A few clays before this appeared I heard, for the 
first time, of the subject having been for competition. 
Wishing to ascertain whether it was decided or not, 
I availed myself of a pretext for calling upon Dr. 
M'Donnell, one of the Secretaries to the Academy, 
when the following conversation took place between 
us: — 

" I wish to know, Sir," said I, "whether the Council 
would patronise a Translation of ' Ibernia Phoenicia,' 
which I have just embarked in, with Dr. Villanueva's 
consent ?" 

" The Council have already subscribed to the 
original, and I believe they feel no difficulty in under- 
standing it in that form," — was the reply. 

" I do not at all question their competency," I re- 
joined : " but to the public, Doctor, it is a sealed 
volume ; and I cannot think it foreign from the spirit of 
your institution to countenance such an idea. Besides, 
it is not a mere echo of the original that I intend to 
give. I purpose to enlarge it by many additions of 
my own, accompanying it all through with notes and 
illustrations." 



PREFACE. Xlll 

c ' To what points in particular will those additions 
refer ?" 

" To the development of the mystery which over- 
hangs the Round Towers." 

" Oh ! on that head the Academy have already 
made up their minds. What is your theory about 
them ?" 

" Surely, Doctor, if the Academy have already made 
up their minds upon the subject, my information can 
be to you of no value ! Good morning." 

If my disappointment at this interview was great, 
my delight, a few mornings after, was incomparably 
greater, on beholding the advertisement above intro- 
duced; and though the shortness of the time allowed, 
with the positiveness of the assertion so recently and 
reluctantly extorted, made me suspect at once that 
there was some management in the business, yet, hav- 
ing thoroughly assured myself, from the wording of 
that manifesto, that I was entitled to enter the lists, 
I plunged into the discussion without further delay, 
and day and night, in sorrow and in difficulties, I 
laboured, until I finished my Essay against the ap- 
pointed day, when I sent it in accordingly to await 
its chance. 

Four days, however, had only passed over, when 
the Council, having perceived that they had been 
taken at their word, by the appearance of a new can- 
didate, allowed their friend to take back his Essay 
for one month more, to render it more perfect ! And 
in the exercise of their discretion, they had the mo- 



XIV PRKFACE. 

desty to advertise, by a document precisely similar to 
that already inserted, that their object in so doing was 
to " obtain new Essays on said subject." 

This last advertisement was not published for some 
days after their friend had removed his work from 
the Council Board ; so that there were no more than 
about three weeks remaining) for the inditing of new 
works upon a subject, for which lives have been found 
inadequate, and for which their friend had already been 
allowed a period nearly approaching to two years ! 

Soon as informed of this manoeuvre, I called upon 
Dr. Singer, as the Secretary, and entreated of him, 
with much ardour, that he would put a stop to those 
proceedings ; stated, that I was myself the author of 
one of the Essays, which I would not further parti- 
cularise ; and that, as I had reason to apprehend 
something wrong was in contemplation, I woulci feel 
obliged if he exerted himself to have the Essays 
detained, and determined upon by their merits as 
they then stood. He asked me to explain the ground 
of my apprehensions. I complied : whereupon he 
assured me that I was mistaken in that quarter, as 
" the individual," says he, t( at whose request we 
have extended the time, is one for whom we all have 
a regard, and is, by no means, the person on whom 
your suspicions light!" 

It was but little consolation to me that the 
person in whose favour all this partiality was exerted 
was " not the person on whom my suspicions 
lighted!" I remonstrated, but in vain. Every svl- 



PREFACE. XV 

lable that transpired afterwards tended only to show 
that the decision was already pronounced — that the 
premium was already awarded. I then hinted at the 
injustice of seducing me into the competition, at 
the very risk of my life, upon so short a notice, and 
not vouchsafing- now so much as to examine my 
production. This had some effect, and I left the 
Doctor with an assurance, that I " should, at all 
events, get a hearing" 

The day for the reception of the amended Essays 
again came, and mine again made its appearance. In 
the interim was started a periodical, under the direction 
of some members of the Council, the most prominent 
of whom was the favoured individual himself. In the 
second number of this periodical, on the Saturday 
after the last sending in of the Essays, there appeared 
an article, written by the Rev. Csesar Otway, a 
member of the Council, under the assumed name of 
Terence OToole, in which, half playfully and half 
mysteriously, he lets the cat out of the bag, and 
actually asserts, as the event verified, that the pre- 
mium was already determined to a member of their 
own body I 

Here are his words : — 

" The Round Tower, to the right, is a prodigious 
puzzler to antiquarians. Quires of paper, as tall as 
a tower, have been covered with as much ink as 
might form a LifTey, in accounting for their origin 
and iise. But all these clever and recondite conjec- 
tures are shortly, as I understand, to.be completely 



XVi PREFACE. 

overthrown, and the real nature of these Round 
Towers clearly explained, for the first time, in a Prize 
Essay, presented to the Royal Irish Academy, by an 
accomplished antiquarian of our city *." 

Notwithstanding the disguise, here assumed, of 
" as I understand," and so forth, the writer of this 
announcement had, at this moment, not only perused 
his colleague's Essay, but actually registered his vote 
in its favour! And as to his pretending that the deve- 
lopement was a discovery, by saying " for the first 
time," he betrays therein the extreme either of un- 
truth or of ignorance, as the* theory alluded to is but 
the echo, in all particulars, of Montmorency's book, 
every sentence in which I prove erroneous in the 
early chapters of the present volume ! I could no 
longer, however, be ignorant as to the identity of the 
person in whose favour Dr. M'Donnell had told me the 
Council had " made up their minds" — casually cor- 
roborated afterwards by Dr. Singer! — I saw at once, 
that the " accomplished antiquarian of our city" was 
Mr. Petrie, the antiquarian artist of the Royal Irish 
Academy — himself a member of their Council ! 

However, Dr. Singer had promised that I " should 
get, at all events, a hearing ! ' And this was per- 
formed with a vengeance. Three months was the 
time devoted to the examination of all the fornur 
Essays. It remained, therefore, only publicly to 
announce what was privately resolved upon. But as 
my Essay, the only new one, was at all taken in. it 

* Dublin Penny Journal, July 7. 1832. 



PREFACE. XV11 

was indispensable but that they must read it, and 
six long months did they appropriate thereto ! At 
the end of this period, they saw that the position 
assumed was right, and that I was entitled to the 
premium. But they had already pledged themselves 
to give it to their friend, whose theory was the direct 
opposite of mine ; and, consequently, every sentence 
in it, or in mine, must be wrong — a discrepancy, how- 
ever, which they thought to reconcile, by leaving the 
original prize undisturbed, and voting me a separate 
one ! 

Had they the candour to avow that this was their 
dilemma, I should never have murmured, but quietly 
submitted to the issue : instead of which, however, 
they worded their resolution in such a form, as led 
the public to think that there were two premiums all 
along intended : and that the first of these was given 
to the best composition, and the second to that which 
approached it in quality ! 

It was as follows : — 

" ROYAL IRISH ACADEMY HOUSE. 
" On Monday, December 17, a meeting of the Council of 
the Royal Irish Academy was held, for the purpose of decid- 
ing on the merits of Essays received, pursuant to advertise- 
ment, On the origin and use of the Round Towers of Ireland, 
when the following Premiums were adjudged: viz. — 

" Fifty Pounds and the Gold Medal to George Petrie. 
" Twenty Pounds to Henry O'Brien, Esq." 

Now, be it observed, that it was not only of the 

b * 






XV111 PREFACE. 

gold medal and fifty pounds that I was deprived by 
this manoeuvre, but of the one hundred additional 
pounds which Lord Cloncurry had offered upon the 
same subject. Of this the Academy were also the 
dispensers, on the understanding, that whoever should 
get their gold medal and fifty pounds — the only pre- 
mium which they had offered — should also get his 
Lordship's hundred ; so that by this stratagem, they 
assigned to their friend not only their own, but his 
Lordship's, patronage ! 

I was in London at the time, and signified my dis- 
satisfaction by letter. Several were interchanged, in 
one of which I gave them to understand, that I would 
submit to the injustice, if they would but publish my 
work in their Transactions simultaneously with Mr. 
Petrie's. This they declined ; assuring me that they 
would publish it, but not simultaneously, and not until 
after ! No comment is necessary for this ! 

Meanwhile their periodical, which, from the first 
moment of its starting, whenever reference was made 
to the Round Towers, unqualifiedly asserted that they 
were Christian, and only coeval with the monas- 
teries *, thought proper now to change its tone ; but 

* " Killraallock has been a place of some distinction from a very 
remote period, and like most of our ancient towns is of ecclesiastical 
origin, a monastery having been founded here by St. Maloch.in the sixth 
century, of which the original Round Tower still remains." — Dublin 
Penny Journal, vol. i. p. G5. 

"These (the Ruins of Swords) consist of a fine and lofty Round 
Tower, coeval with the foundation of the original monastery." — Dublin 
Penny .Journal, vol. i. p. 177. 



PREFACE. XIX 

as an open acknowledgment of error would be too 
self-abasing for academicians, they only put forth a 
feeler, as if implying doubt on the matter; which 
would have the two-fold effect of screening the 
" Council's" verdict — as the result of doubt or am- 
biguity — and of preparing the public mind for the 
altered and novel conclusion to which all, I trust, will 
ere long, as well as themselves, have arrived. 

My eye, however, was on their plans, though sepa- 
ra- ^d by a " roaring sea." I knew that where there 
were so many windings to mature the plot, there 
must be as many to prevent its detection ; and, ac- 
cordingly, the very first move they made, in these 
their new tactics, I check-mated, at once, by the follow- 
ing letter :— 

(No. 1.) 

" London, March 16, 1833. 
" Dear Dr. Singer, 

" The Dublin Penny Journal of February 23d, on the 
article ' Devenish Island,' contains this sentence, viz., ' whether 
the towers are the accompaniment to the churches, or the 
churches to the towers, is a question not yet decided.' 

* Now, this — coupled with the circumstance of the com- 
mittee having awarded two premiums, to two, as I understand, 
conflicting ascriptions ; and that when only one was originally 
proposed — induces me, with all deference, to offer this me- 
morial, through you, to the Academy. 

" As the development of truth in the elucidation of history, is 
the object of the antiquarian — and as the ' labourer is worthy 
of his hire,' I take the liberty respectfully to ask, whether, if 

b 2 



XX PREFACE. 

I make my ascription of the Round Towers a mathematical 
demonstration, with every other incident relating to their 
founders, comprehending all the antiquities of Ireland, as con- 
nected therewith — and this by all the varieties and modes of 
proof — whether, I say, in that event, will the Academy award 
me the gold medal and premium ? or, if that cannot be recalled, 
an equivalent gold medal and premium ? 

My intercalary work, substantiating all the above, is now 
finished, and can be forwarded to the committee by return of 
the same post which will favour me with your answer. 
" I have the honour to be, dear Sir, 

" Your obedient, &c, 

" Henry O'Brien. 
" Rev. Dr. J. H. Singer, Secretary to the Academy." 

By the above proposal I must not be understood as 
admitting that my original Essay " was not sufficiently 
conclusive," but as I had more arguments still in 
reserve, I wanted to elicit from the Academy the 
admission that it was truth they sought after. After 
waiting, however, more than three weeks, and getting 
no reply, I forwarded some other proofs, accompanied 
by a letter, of which the following was the conclu- 
sion, viz. — 

(No. 2.) 

» These are but. item* in the great body of discoveries which 
this intercalary work will exhibit. In truth, I may without 
vanity assert, that the whole ancient history of Ireland, #c. is 
therein rectified and elucidated— what it. never was before. 

« Am I, therefore, presumptuous in appealing to the Royal 



PREFACE. XXI 

Irish Academy — the heads of Irish literature and the avowed 

patrons of its development — for the reward of my labours ? 

" I shall, with confidence, rely upon their justice. 

" I have the honour to be, with sincere regard, &c, 

" Henry O'Brien. 
" To the Rev. Dr. J. H. Singer, Secretary to the Academy." 



(No. 3.) 

" Royal Irish Academy House, April 16, 1833. 
" Sir, 

" Your improved Essay and letter were yesterday laid 

before council ; and as Dr. Singer is at present confined with 
the gout, it devolves on me to communicate to you the following 
extract from the minutes. 

" ' Resolved, that the Secretary be directed to reply to Mr. 
O'Brien, and to state that any alteration or revocation of their 
award cannot, be made, whatever may be the merits of any 
additional matter supplied to them after the day appointed by 
advertisement ; but, if Mr. O'Brien be willing that the new 
matter be printed along with the original Essay, the council 
will have the same perused in order to ascertain the expe- 
diency of so enlarging their publication.' 19V8W0I f 

D J 

oo'iq is dr y or er, b9b'iB7/io^ I t ^fq9i on 
" Rich. Row, 
3bw Xffiiwollot sdj nairlw TO-.'ifmftL.ii 



To H. O'Brien, Esq." 



" Clerk to the Academy. 



(No. 4.) 

" London, April 18, 1833. 

" Sir, 

n 

" Had I a notion that the Academy's reply would be 
such as your letter has this day imparted, I would never have 
sat down to indite those additions, much less have forwarded 
them for their perusal. For why did I write to the Secretary 
three weeks ago, but to ascertain whether or not, in the event 



XX11 PREFACE. 

of my doing so and so, would the Academy act so and so ? and 
thus repair that injury which they had before inflicted ? What 
could be more easy than to give me a categorical answer, one 
way or the other ? Instead of which, however, they left me to 
my own conclusions, which — as usual, in such circumstances — 
leading me to construe silence into acquiescence — I trans- 
mitted my documents on the tacit faith, that though the Aca- 
demy would not pledge themselves by a written promise, they 
would, notwithstanding, if my researches proved adequate, re- 
ward my industry by a suitable remuneration. 

" Now, however, when my papers have been received, and 
my developments communicated, I am told that, be their merits 
what they may, the award is irrevocable ; and I have no alter- 
native, in the writhings of my mortification, but the consolation 
of being injured and duped at the same time. 

" You will say, perhaps, that my new evidences have not 
yet been read; and that, therefore, my property is secure and 
sacred. But has not the accompanying letter been read ? And 
what was that but a programme of their contents? 

" I had thought that the Royal Irish Academy were not only 
a learned, but a just and a patriotic society. / had thought 
that having marshalled themselves into an institution, with the 
avowed object of resuscitating from death the almost despaired- 
of evidences of our national history, they would not alone foster 
every advance toward that desirable consummation, but shower 
honours, and acclamations, and triumphs upon him, who has 
not only infused a vital soul into those moribund remains, but 
made the history of Ireland, at this moment, the clearest, the 
most irrefragible, and withal, the most interestingly compre- 
hensive chcdn of demonstrational proofs in the whole circle of 
universal literature *. 

* If this appear ovcrsanguinc, I trust it will be attributed to its only 
cause, a strong sense of injustice expressed in the moment of warmth, 
and without ever expecting that this expression should see the light. 



PREFACE. XX111 

" But it is not alone the being deprived of my reward that I 
complain of, and the transferring of that reward to another, every 
sentiment of whose production must inevitably be wrong; but it 
is the suppression of my labours, and the keeping them back 
from the public eye, in deference to my opponent's work, lest 
that the discernment of the public should bestow upon me 
those honours which the discretion of the Academy has thought 
proper to alienate, that affects me as most severe. 

" Indeed, it has been stated from more quarters than one, 
that the withholding of the medal from me, in the first instance, 
and the substituting thereinstead a nominal premium of twenty 
pounds, originated from a personal pique against me individually. 
Such a report I would fain disbelieve, and yet it is hard not to 
give it some credence, seeing that the irresistible cogency of my 
truths, and the indubitable value of my literary discoveries, are 
not only not rewarded, but kept back from publication, until 
some one else more fortunate, or rather, more favoured, shall 
run away with the credit of my cherished disclosures *. I 
wish — I desire — I most intensely covet — that the Academy 
would convince me that this is not an act of the most aggra- 
vated injustice. 

" You will please lay this before the council, and tell them 
from me, respectfully, that I do not want them either to ' alter' 
or ' revoke' their award ; but simply to vote me * an equivalent 
gold medal and premium' for my combined essay, or, if they 
prefer, the neiv portion of it. Should this be refused, J will 
put my cause, &c. &c. 

" I have the honour to be, &c. &c. 

e( Henry O'Brien. 
" To the Rev. Rich. Row, Clerk to the Academy." 

* That this was not gratuitous, I pledge myself to prove, even from 
circumstances that have already transpired. 



XXIV PREFACE, 

They bestowed some days in consultation upon the 
above, meanwhile the transmission of the " Dublin 
Penny Journal" to London was countermanded ; and 
not a copy of it was allowed, for some months after- 
wards, to come within hundreds of miles of the place 
of my residence. In the interim, the ingenious 
author of the " Celtic Druids," and who had been 
partly in possession of my development of the 
" Towers" for some time previously, favoured me with 
a visit, during which we conversed principally on 
historical questions. The next day I addressed him 
a note, a copy of which, with its answer, I take leave 
to subjoin, for the sake of the terminating clause of the 
latter, being the self-convicting acknowledgment of the 
" Academy's" disingenuous ness. 



(No. 5.) 



" May 2, 1833. 



" Dear Sir, 

" I hope you will not feel displeased at the frankness of 
this question which I am about to propose to you, viz., have 
you any objection to show me in manuscript, before you send 
to print, the terms in which you speak of me, in reference lo 
those points of information which I intrusted to your confi- 
dence — such as the ancient names of Ireland and their deriva- 
tion, the Towers and founders, dates, &c. 

u Should you think proper to consent to this feeling of 
anxiety on my part, I shall be most willing to share with you 
those other "points" which I exclusively retain. 

" To the full extenl you shall have them. The only con- 
dition I require is, the credit of originality — which 1 have labo- 



PREFACE. XXV 

riously earned. Please to drop me a line in reply to this, and 
allow me to subscribe myself, with great respect, 

" Dear Sir, 

" Your obedient, 

f Henry O'Brien. 
" Godfrey Higgins, Esq." 



(No. 6.) 

" May 3, 1833. 
" My dear O'Brien, 

" You may be perfectly assured I shall print nothing 
which I have learnt from you without acknowledging it. But 
I have really forgotten what you told me, because I considered 
that I should see it in print in a few days. Any thing I 
shall write on the subject, will not be printed for years after 
your books have been before the public. You did not tell me 
the name of Buddha, but I told it you, that it was Saca, or 
Saca-sa *, which I have already printed a hundred times, and 
can show you in my great quarto, when you take your tea with 
me, as I hope you will to-morrow. Sir W. Betham told me 
of the Fire Towers being Phallus's, last night, at the Anti- 
quarian Society. 

" Yours, truly, 

G. Higgins." 

- 

* It is true Mr. Higgins lias told me this, and I listened, with polite 
silence, to what I had read " in print 1 ' a thousand times before. But 
our chronicles call the name Macha, and I abide by them. Enough, 
however, has occurred, between the date of this letter and the present, 
to quiet the most ardent disposition as to the pursuit of earthly eclat. 
Its author is no more ! He has reached that " bourne whence no tra- 
veller returns.'' And the warning, I confess, is to myself not a little 
pointed, from the unremitting perseverance with which this inquiry has 
been prosecuted, and the vexatious opposition with which its truths have 
been met. 



XXVI PREFACE. 

Who, now, can pretend to think that the neutralizing 
award of the " Council" was the effect of scepticism 
or legimate doubt ? Here Sir William Betham, — the 
Ulster King at Arms ! the Goliah of Antiquaries ! 
as he is, undoubtedly, of Pedigrees ! — being himself 
a member of the " deciding tribunal," proclaims, in 
the midst of a venerable literary assembly, that my 
solution of the Round Tower enigma is accurate ; and 
yet, in the teeth of this confession, and of the convic- 
tion which extorted it, he joins in voting away my 
medal to a compilation of errors, and in substituting 
thereinstead Twenty Pounds ! 

(No. 7.) 

" London, May 2, 1833. 
" Dear Dr. Singer, 

" I exceedingly grieve to hear of your ill health. — Its 
announcement, I assure you, made me look within myself, and 
for a moment, lose sight of my own hardships. I hope, how- 
ever, that you are now so far recovered as to send me a favour- 
able answer to this my last appeal. 

" Taking it for certain that the Academy's having not 
replied to the tenor of my late intimation, arose from the cir- 
cumstance of there having been no ' Council Day' since ; 
and, as I anticipate, that on Monday next my question will be 
finally disposed of, I am anxious, for the good of all parties, 
and for the triumph of truth, to show you in one view how 1 
have amputated the last supports of error, and covered its 
advocates with ignominy and shame. 



* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


# 


* 


■* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 


* 



" Thus every k^/ unfolds evidences to the realization of my 
victory 1 look my si and at the outset on the pedestal of 



PREFACE. XXV11 

truth ; and I challenge scrutiny to insinuate, that, in the mul- 
tiplied developments which I have since revealed, I have 
deviated from my grand position one single iota. 

" Let me not be supposed, in the observation with which I 
am now about to conclude, that I mean anything disrespectful 
to the Council of the Academy. Many years have not passed 
since I knew several of them in a different relation ; and, how- 
ever little effect College Associations may produce on other 
minds, / find not their influence so fleeting or transient. It is 
with extreme reluctance, therefore, that I would split with a 
body who have lectured me as tutors. But time has advanced; 
I am now right, and they are wrong ; and the cause which 
they patronise will not do them much credit. 

" I do not, however, yet give up my hopes but that the 
Academy will wisely retrace their steps : revocation of the 
former medal I do not require — much less the exercise of a 
single grain of partiality — My demand merely is, as my 
former letters have indicated, the substitution of justice. 

" Please receive the assurance of my consideration, and in 
confident reliance that you will use your influence in this 
matter, and favour me with the upshot instantly after Mon- 
day's Board. 

" I remain, ever sincerely, yours, 

" Henry O'Erie^'' 



(No. 8.) 

" London, May 9, 1833. 
" Dear Dr. Singer, 

" My appeals are over — and, I regret to say, that they 
have not been attended to. The virtuous and enlightened 
part of the Academy, therefore, cannot blame me, if in the 



XXV1U PREFACE. 

assertion of my honest right, I try the effect of a public remon- 
strance. 

" In the interim, I transmit to you by this night's post some 
additional leaves, which — in the anxiety of despatch, as well, 
indeed, as from fear that they would not be inserted, because 
they overwhelm for ever the antiquarian pretensions of the 
Dublin Penny Journal *, I have omitted to copy. However, 
I will now forward them, and claim that they may be printed 
along with those already sent, in the original Essay. 

" * * * * * * I have exhausted all the forms of 
blandness and conciliation, in the vain hope of inducing the 
Council to redeem themselves from disgrace, by doing me 
common justice. I have strove in the mildest terms of con- 
scious rectitude, invigorated by a phalanx of overwhelming 
proofs, to make them re-consider their course, and spare me 
the unpleasant, task of exposing a deed which I am loth to 
characterize by its proper designation. But ' the heart of 
Pharaoh' was hardened — the ' voice of the charmer' not lis- 
tened to — and to my soft importunities nothing was returned, 
but the coldness of obduracy and disregard. 

" The Rubicon, therefore, is crossed — my patience feels 
insulted — and the only consideration I value, in the resolve to 
which I have at last been driven, is, that you had nothing to 
do with the 'job' of the Round Towers. 

" Little did the Academy know what arguments I could 
adduce in elucidation of certain mysteries. — As little do they 
now dream what proofs I can summon — though you cannot 
have forgotten one of them, while I promise I shall make 
Dr. Mc. Donnell recollect another — and would not the Rev. 
Casar Otway, with whom I have never so much as exchanged 
a look, be surprised at my quoting him as a reluctant third 

* I wish the reader to keep this in mind ; its effects will be manifested 
by and by. 



PREFACE. XXIX 

witness — to show that the gold medal and premium were pre- 
determined to Mr. Petrie, before ever I became a candidate ; 
and that, consequently, the advertisement under which I was 
invited to contend, but from which the Council never expected 
an intruder, was but a specious delusion ! 

,f In this determination, I violate no act of private regard, 
nor set light by the claims of individual acquaintance. You 
know yourself how earnestly I struggled before the consumma- 
tion of this nefarious proceeding, to stem the agency of that 
despicable under-current which I had just detected. I knew 
that fraud, of some kind, was at work ; and though unable, at 
the moment, to fix upon the person in whose favour it was set 
a-going — nay, though mentally fastening the blame thereof upon 
another, whose name, however, I never let slip, and to whom, 
I rejoice to say, I have since made more than recompense for 
this ideal injury — yet could I not be persuaded but that some- 
thing sinister was designed : and to frustrate the influence of 
such prominent deceit, you know how vehement was my ad- 
dress. I implored you,. I besought you, and all but upon my 
knees, and with tears, I invoked you, by your regard to justice, 
and your fear of a Creator, to check this trickery, and allow 
merit, alone and anonymous, to decide the issue. 

" I now, in the same spirit of solemn self-composure, adjure 
the ' Council' through you — in the name of that God before 
whom they and I shall one day appear — that they will have 
my cause redressed, and make me reparation, not only for the 
substantial injury, but for the mental disquietude and agony 
which this * business' has occasioned. If they do not, rest 
satisfied, that my path is already chalked. All the evolutions 
of the Council, as displayed upon the ' Towers,' and with 
which I am but too familiar, shall be immortalized in letter- 
press : and I do not yet despair of the hereditary fairness of 
my country, but that it shall register its dissent from the deci- 
sion of that tribunal, which could have had, at once, the obtuse- 



XXX PREFACE. 

ness of intellect and the perverseness of conduct, to stultify 
their own verdict by a contradictory award, and — after inveig- 
ling me into a competition which they never meant to remu- 
nerate — deprive me of the fruits of my indubitable triumph, 
in the pursuit of which I had almost lost my life, and cut short 
my existence in the very spring of my manhood. 

et I mean no offence, individually or collectively, to the Aca- 
demy, or its members ; but as they have been deaf to the justice 
of my private ' appeals,' I shall try the effect of a public 
' remonstrance ;' and as to ulterior consequences, I greatly 
err, else the upshot will show, that the motto *, adopted as my 
fictitious signature in the '■ Essay,' was not the random 
assumption of inconsiderateness or accident, but the true index 
to the author's resources. 

" My proposal is this — my unshaken position from which I 
will not swerve or retract — a gold medal and premium equiva- 
lent to those originally advertised. 

" I am, dear Sir, 

" Yours sincerely, 

" Henry O'Brien. 

" To the Rev. Dr. J. Singer, 
" Secretary to the Academy." 



(No. 10.) 

" May 13, 1833, Grafton-strect, Dublin. 
" Dear Sir, 

" I have been directed by the Council of the Royal 
Irish Academy to reply to your last letters on the subject of 
your Essay, and the additional matter recently sent over. As 
1o the latter, I am directed to say, that the Council had 
engaged to examine, and publish, if approved, some small 



PREFACE. XXXI 

additions to your former Essay; but the papers you have 
sent are so large, as to be nearly equal in bulk to the original 
dissertation ; under these circumstances, the Council cannot 
publish them as additional to, or incorporated with, the Essay 
to which they awarded Twenty Pounds prize, as thereby its 
character might be so altered, that it zoould not appear in 
print the same Essay on which they had formed their opinion. 
The Council, therefore, wishes to know how they may trans- 
mit to you the papers you have sent. When the gentlemen, 
to whom your Essay has been submitted for examination, 
report, you shall be made aware of the extent of alteration 
they suggest ; and if you think that your paper requires the 
additions you have sent, and would, therefore, wish to publish 
it with them yourself, I have no doubt the Council will enter- 
tain any notice to that effect. 

" I am, dear Sir, 

<( Your most obedient, 

" J. H. Singer. 
" H. O'Brien, Esq." 



(No. 11.) 

" London, May 20, 1833. 
" Dear Da, Singer, 

" I do not quite understand the closing observation of 
your last letter. If the Academy mean me a kindness, I 
should trust that my nature is too sensible of such advances 
not suitably to acknowledge it : and I should be sorry that, 
either from obscurity in the diction, or want of quickness in 
my perception, I were to lose the opportunity of making a 
grateful return. — Let me, therefore, put the following interro- 
gatory to set myself right, viz. — 

" Will the Academy procure me a publisher for my 
enlarged work? And will they advertise, that having pre- 



XXX11 PREFACE. 

viously done me injustice, by the transfer of my medal, they 
now, on being convinced of their error, adopt this, as the only 
mode of reparation, the award itself not being to be re- 
called ? 

" Without some such course as this, it is obvious that the 
offer which they make, instead of being a kindness would be a 
mockery ; and instead of making amends for oppression, would 
be adding insult to persecution ! For who, let me ask, would 
publish a work, which a jury have branded with the stamp of 
inferior, doling out their surreptitious Twenty Pounds as an 
eleemosynary deodand, while the darling of their adoption, 
though disfigured by all the imperfections of blindness, lame- 
ness, and untruth, and recommended only by a few painted 
gew-gaws, which never entered into the requisites of the ori- 
ginal advertisement, will pass current in Dublin, amongst the 
creatures of party ! 

" I have already applied to Mr. , and he, intimidated 

by the vicious state of society in Ireland, declined my proposal ; 
but though his apprehensions were sufficient to deter him from 
the speculation, they were totally unfounded; for, despite of 
all corruption, all chicanery, and all cabals, the &c. &c. Sec. 

" This complaint, observe, does not refer to the new papers 
only, but extends itself equally to the original Essay. Why 
do the Academy keep it back ? Believe me, it is in vain for 
them to defer « the evil day ' of their exposure. Their doom 
was sealed the very moment they did me injustice ! I have 
watchfully reconnoitered their course, and have proofs of the 
intricacies of their internal machinery, ample as those before 
adduced for the solution of the Round Tower enigma, to effect 
their overthrow; and if the present generation be not virtuous 
enough to redress my cause, it shall be no fault, of mine if any 
future age shall be ignorant of the names of the individuals who 
constitute the present council, and in what light they shall be 
considered, their own consciences can furnish them with a tole- 
rable foretaste ! 



PREFACE. XXXlll 

"■ Was it not a cruelly perverse thing' of them, after deter- 
mining beforehand to award the medal to Mr. Petrie, to in- 
veigle me into the competition by a deceptious advertisement ? 
And then, after signally beating them under all disadvantages, 
to manoeuvre me off by a beggarly cheat? Shame ! foul shame, 
for ever, upon the Academy ! 

" Why, Sir, the very terms of your letter show their self- 
convictedness, though they have not honesty enough to avow 
it overboard ! What do they mean by saying that the new 
matter would 'make my Essay not appear, in print, the same 
as that on which they formed their opinion V Are they afraid 
that it would make it appear worse ? Not at all ; they would 
rejoice at the pretext, and publish it instanter, as a cloak to 
their verdict ! But as they have, in spite of them, admitted 
those additions to be an improvement *, why do they, I ask, 
who have advertised for truth, again repress its effulgence ? 

" It is now easy to see what they designed by the clauses 
of ' expediency,' « if approved,' and c subject to revisal;'-viz., 
if false, we will insert them in self-vindication ; but if true, we 
will not, as being too great a victory over our own ignorance 
and favouritism ! 

" My Essay, however, does not want those new papers : the 
Council therefore will please have them sealed, and handed 
over to the custody of Mr. Tims, my bookseller, in Grafton- 
street. The only additions which I shall insist upon being 
inserted, are those contained in my letters, in appropriate 
places, as I shall point out. 

" I conclude by giving notice that I shall claim Lord Clon- 
curry's premium : nor do I despair of recovering that, as I 
should think that his Lordship is too honest a man to sacrifice 
the interests of literature to the intrigues of a faction ! 

il I have the honour to be, &c. 

" Henry O'Brien*" 

* See letter No. 3. 



XXXIV PREFACE. 

(Xo. 12.) 

" Royal Irish Academy House, Dublin, May 27, 1833. 
" Sir, 

" I am directed by the Council of the Royal Irish Academy 
to inform you, that they feel themselves compelled, in conse- 
quence of your late letters, to decline the publication of your 
Essay, or the maintaining any further correspondence with you 
on the subject. 

" Your Essay and the additional matter will be sent, as you 
desire, to Mr. Tims, Grafton-street, as soon as a copy of the 
former can be taken. 

" I am, Sir, your most obedient, 

" J. H. Singer, Secretary. 
" H. O'Brien, Esq." 

The discontinuance of the correspondence was to 
be expected, but their declining the publication of 
my Essay in their Transactions, merely because of 
my giving utterance to some unpalatable truths, was 
an excess of magnanimity, which I did not think that 
even the " Council" would personify. 

However, you suppose that they, at all events, re- 
turned me my Essay, as promised ? Far from it ! In 
violation of all honour, and of the written engage- 
ments of their Secretary, they have detained it ever 
since in their hands, thereby putting me to the vast 
expense of procuring new plates, instead of those 
which the original contained; an inconvenience, I 
must affirm, which they had hoped I could never 
have surmounted ; while in the interim, they should 
push out their bantling upon the public, secuiv 



PREFACE. XXXV 

in the consciousness of having cushioned my work, 
that they should ride over the market without a rival. 

They should have known, however, that the person 
who, at three months notice, undertook to solve the 
" Towers," and then kept them at bay for six months 
before they could chouse him out of his prize, was not 
to be deterred by such an obstacle as the above. And 
the reader may be satisfied that, though it has occa- 
sioned me some hardship, he is, in no respect, thereby a 
loser. 

I have stated that the effect of my letter No. 1, was 
to interrupt the transmission of the " Dublin Penny 
Journal" to London; I have now to point out the result 
of the menace conveyed in Letter 8, of my determining 
to expose — as I enclosed the proofs that I could re- 
fute — the antiquarian errors of their organ, it was that 
they instantly took the hint, and sold their interest in 
the concern ! And its new proprietor, edified, no 
doubt, by a friendly lesson at their hands, very wisely 
intimates in his opening number, that he shall forego 
antiquities, and make literary jobbing no part of its 
management. 

Here are his words, — " From the concluding para- 
graph of the last number of this little publication, its 
readers will be aware that it is now in the hands 
of a new Editor and Proprietor ; and they will natu- 
rally expect that in the present number something 
should be said relative to its future management. 
' Deeds, not words,' has ever been the motto of its 
(present) conductor ; and he will therefore merely say 



XXXVI PREFACE. 

that it is his intention to give his readers good value 
for their money — that the Dublin Penny Journal 
shall not be a mere ' catchpenny,' depending upon 
the number and excellence of its woodcuts for ex- 
tensive circulation ; but containing, as he considers a 
publication of the kind should do, such a variety of 
interesting and useful matter as shall render it really 
valuable. In future, therefore, while the antiquities 
of the country will not be neglected, the work shall 
exhibit a more general character in the subjects of its 
contents*" 

* Dublin Penny Journal, Aug. 3, 1833. 



N.B. As 1 am a member of no club, belong to no literary society, and 
have not facilities otherwise for watching periodicals, whether yieics- 
papers, magazines, or reviews, I shall feel obliged if any gentleman who 
in the exercise of a free judgment should think proper to dissent from 
me, and to express such dissent in inoffensive language, would be 
pleased to forward me a copy of the work wherein his strictures may 
appear, and I promise that 1 shall reply to them with deference ami 
perhaps satisfaction. I also trust that, from the singularity of my posi- 
tion, / do not expect too much, when I express a hope, that any pub- 
lication which speaks against me, will allow me to reply through the 
same medium— a request certainly which cannot be refused, unless the 
design be hostile and factiously malicious. Any suggestions for im- 
provement, with a view to a second edition, I very cheerfully court. 

All communications addressed to me, to the care of my Publisher, Mr. 
W iiittakeu, Ave-Maria Lane, St. Paul's, London, will reach and be 
attended to. 



THE 

ROUND TOWERS, 

8fc. 



CHAPTER I. 

" A lively desire of knowing and recording our ancestors so generally 
prevails, that it must depend on the influence of some common prin- 
ciple in the minds of men. We seem to have lived in the persons of 
our forefathers ; our calmer judgment will rather tend to moderate 
than suppress the pride of an ancient and worthy race. The satirist 
may laugh; the philosopher may preach; but reason herself will 
respect the prejudices and habits which have been consecrated by the 
experience of mankind*." 

Of all nations on the globe, the Irish, as a people, 
are universally admitted to possess, in a pre-eminent 
degree, those finer sensibilities of the human heart, 
which, were they but wisely controlled, would exalt 
man above the level of ordinary humanity, and make 
him, as it were, a being of another species. The 
numerous instances adduced in all periods of their 
history, of ardent and enterprising zeal, in every case 
wherein personal honour or national glory may be 
involved, are in themselves sufficient to establish this 
assertion. But while granting their pre-eminence as 
to the possession of those feelings, and the capability 
of the feelings themselves to be refined and sub- 
limated to the very acme of cultivation, we may still 
doubt whether the mere possession of them be not 
less a blessing than a curse — whether, in fact, their 

* Gibbon's Memoirs. 

B 



2 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

quick perception of disquietudes and pains be not 
more than a counterpoise to their keen enjoyment of 
delight or pleasure. 

Foremost, however, in the train of the many virtues 
which flow therefrom, is that " amor patriae," or love 
of country, which, unsubdued often by the most 
galling miseries and the most hopeless wants, throws 
a halo round the loneliness of their present despair in 
the proud retrospection of their former buoyancy. This 
spirit it is which, despite of obvious advantages to be 
derived from emigration, has riveted the Irish peasant 
so immutably to his home^ that any effort on his part 
to dissolve those local fetters would be equivalent to 
the disruption of all the ties and attachments which 
nature or habit had implanted within him. 

" The lofty scenes around their sires recall, 
Fierce in the field and generous in the hall ; 
The mountain crag, the stream and waving tree, 
Breathe forth some proud and glorious history — 
Urges their steps where patriot virtue leads, 
And fires the kindred souls to kindred deeds. 
They tread elate the soil their fathers trod, 
The same their country, and the same their God.'" 

But it may be said, that this is a day-dream of 
youth — the hereditary vanity of one of Iran's sons, 
arrogating antiquity and renown for an inconsiderable 
little island, without a particle of proof to substan- 
tiate their assumption, or a shadow of authority to 
give colour to their claims. Why, sir, cast your 
eye over the fair face of the land itself, and does 
not the scene abound with the superfluity of its 
evidences? What are those high aspiring edifices 
which rise with towering elevation towards the 
canopy of the " Most High? "' * What are those stu- 
+ The Budhisl tempW 



THE ROUND TOWERS. J 

pendous and awful structures of another form — the 
study at once and admiration of the antiquarian and 
the philosopher, to be found on the summits of our 
various hills * as well as in the bowels f of the earth 
itself? — what are they but the historical monuments 
of splendour departed — surviving the ravages of time 
and decay, not as London's column, to " lift their 
heads and lie," but to give the lie and discomfiture 
to those, who, from the interested suggestions of an 
illiberal policy, or the more pardonable delusions of a 
beclouded judgment, would deny the authenticity of 
our historic records, and question the truth of our 
primeval civilisation ? 

It is true, the magnificence, which those memo- 
rials demonstrate, is but the unenviable grandeur of 
druidical, as it is called, idolatry and unenlightened 
paganism, — when man, relinquishing that supremacy, 
consigned to him at his creation, or rather divested 
thereof in punishment for the transgression of his dege- 
nerate disposition, lost sight of that Being to whom 
he owed his safety and his life, and bent himself in 
homage before perishable creatures that crawl their 
ephemeral pilgrimage through the same scene with 
himself: granted; yet that cannot well be objected 
to us as a disgrace, which, co-extensive in its adoption 
with the amplitude of the earth's extension, equally 
characterised the illiterate and the sage; and if, amidst 
this lamentable prostration of the human understand- 
ing, any thing like redemption, or feature of supe- 
riority may be allowed, it must be, unquestionably, to 
the adherents of that system, which, excluding the 
objects of matter and clay, recognised, in its worship 
of jthe bright luminaries of the firmament, the purity 

* The Croraleachs. t The Mithratic Caves. 

B2 



4 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

and omnipotence of that Spirit who brought all into 
existence, and who guides and preserves them in 
their respective spheres ; — -and when I shall have 
proved that the intent and application of those 
Sabian * Towers, — or, to speak more correctly, those 
ptimitive Budhist Temples, — which decorate our land- 
scape and commemorate our past renown, appertained 
to this species of purified idolatry, which worshipped 
only the host of heaven, the moon and the solar body, 
which gives vigour to all things, I shall, methinks, 
have removed one obstacle from the elucidation of 
our antiquities, and facilitated the road to further 
adventure in this interesting inquiry. 

Let me not be supposed, however, by the preceding 
remarks to restrict their destination to one single pur- 
pose. All I require of my readers is a patient perusal 
of my details ; and I deceive myself very much, and 
overrate my powers of enunciation, else I shall esta- 
blish in their minds as thorough a conviction of the 
development of the " Towers," as I am myself satisfied 
with the accuracy of my conclusions. I shall only 
entreat, then, of their courtesy that I be not antici- 
pated in my course, or definitively judged of by iso- 
lated scraps, but that, as my notice for this competi- 
tion has been limited and recent, allowing but little 
time, for the observance of tactique or rules, in the 
utterance of the novel views which I now venture to 
put forward, the proofs of which, however, have been 
long registered in my thoughts, and additionally con- 
firmed by every new research, the merits of the pro- 
duction may not be estimated by parcels, but by the 
combined tendency of the parts all together. 

To begin therefore. The origins I have heard 

* Job i. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 5 

assigned to those records of antiquity, — however invi- 
dious it may appear, at this the outset of my labours, 
to assume so self-sufficient a tone, yet can I not avoid 
saying that, whether I consider their multiplicity or 
their extravagance, they have not more frequently 
excited my ridicule than my commiseration. That 
specimens of architecture, so costly and so elegant, 
should be designed for the paltry purposes of purgato- 
rial columns or penitential heights, to which criminals 
should be elevated for the ablution of their enormi- 
ties — while the honest citizen, virtuous and unstained, 
should be content to grovel amongst lowly terrestrials 
'mid the dense exhalations of forests and bogs, in a 
mud- wall hut, or at best a conglomeration of wattles 
and hurdles — is, I conceive, an outrage upon human 
reason too palpable to be listened to. 

Not less ridiculous is the idea of their having been 
intended for beacons ; for, were such their destination, 
a hill or rising ground would have been the proper site 
for their erection, and not a valley or low land, where 
it happens that we generally meet them. 

The belfry theory alone, unfounded in one sense 
though it really be, and when confined to that appli- 
cation equally contemptible with the others, is, not- 
withstanding, free from the objection that would lie 
against the place, as it is well known that the sound 
of bells, which hang in plains and valleys, is heard 
much farther than that of such as hang upon eleva- 
tions or hills : for, air being the medium of sound, 
the higher the sonorous body is placed, the more rare- 
fied is that medium, and consequently the less proper 
vehicle to convey the sound to a distance. The objec- 
tion of situation, therefore, does not apply to this 
theory ; and, accordingly, we shall find that the exer- 



6 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

cising of bells — though in a way and for an object 
little contemplated by our theorists— constituted part 
of the machinery of the complicated ceremonial of 
those mysterious edifices. 

The truth is, the " Round Towers" of Ireland were 
not all intended for one and the same use, nor any 
one of them limited to one single purpose : and this, 
I presume, will account for the variety in their con- 
struction, not less perceptible in their diameters and 
altitudes than in other characteristic bearings. For, 
I am not to be told that those varieties we observe 
were nothing more than the capriciousness of taste, 
when I find that the indulgence of that caprice, in one 
way, would defeat the very object to which one party 
would ascribe them, whilst its extension, in a different 
way, would frustrate the hopes of another set of spe- 
culators. 

But what must strike the most cursory as irresis- 
tibly convincing that they were not erected all with 
one view, is the fact of our sometimes finding two of 
them together in one and the same locality. 

Now, if they were intended as beacons or belfries, 
would it not be the most wasteful expenditure of time 
and wealth to erect two of them together on almost 
the same spot ? And when I mention expenditure, 
perhaps I may be allowed, incidentally, to observe, 
that, of all species of architecture, this particular form, 
as it is the most durable, so is it also the most diffi- 
cult and the most costly. 

Need I name the sum of money which Nelson's 
monument has cost in modern times ? or that imper- 
fect testimonial in the Phcenix Park which comme- 
morates the glories of the hero of Waterloo ? No ; 
but 1 will mention what Herodotus tells us was the 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 7 

purport of an inscription upon one of the pyramids of 
Egypt, the form of some of which, be it known, was 
not very dissimilar to our Irish pyramids, while their 
intent and object were more congenial ; viz., that 
no less a sum than 1600 talents of silver, or about 
400,000/. of our money, had been expended upon 
radishes, onions and garlic alone, for 360,000 men, 
occupied for twenty years in bringing that stu- 
pendous fabric, that combined instrument of religion 
and science, to completion ! 

Our " Round Towers," we may well conceive, must 
have been attended, at the early period of their 
erection, with comparatively similar expense : and 
assuredly the motive, which could suggest such an 
outlay, must have been one of corresponding import, 
of the most vital, paramount, and absorbing consi- 
deration. 

Would the receptacles for a bell be of such moment? 
And that too, whilst the churches, to which, of course, 
they must have appertained, were thought worthy of 
no better materials than temporary hurdles, and, so, 
leave behind them no vestiges of their local site, — no 
evidence or trace of their ever having existed ! And, 
indeed, how could they ? — for existence they never had, 
except in the creative imagination of our hypothetical 
antiquaries. 

Ruins, it is true, of chapels and dilapidated cathe- 
drals are frequently found in the vicinity of our 
' Round Towers ;' but these betray in their materials 
and architecture the stamp of a later age, having 
been founded by missionaries of the early Christian 
church, and purposely thus collocated — contiguous to 
edifices long before hallowed by a religious use, — to, 
at once, conciliate the prejudices of those whom they 



8 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

would fain persuade, and divert their adoration to a 
more purified worship. 

And yet, upon this single circumstance of proximity 
to ecclesiastical dilapidations — coupled with the bas- 
relief of a crucifix which presents itself over the door 
of the Budhist temple of Donoghmore in Ireland, and 
that of Brechin in Scotland — have the deniers of the 
antiquity of those venerable memorials raised that 
superstructure of historical imposture, which, please 
God, I promise them, will soon crumble round their 
ears, before the indignant effulgence of regenerated 
veracity. 

It might be sufficient for this purpose, perhaps, to 
tell them, that similar ruins of early Christian churches 
are to be met with, abundantly, in the neighbourhood 
of Cromleachs and Mithratic caves, all .through the 
island ; and that they might as well, from this vicinity, 
infer, that those two other vestiges of heathenish 
adoration were contrived by our early Christians as 
appendages to the chapels, as they would fain make 
out — by precisely the same mode of inference — -that 
the " Round Towers " had been ! 

But this would not suit ; thev could find no ascrip- 
tion, associated with Christianity, which cave or crom- 
leach could subserve ; and, thus, have the poor mission- 
aries escaped the cumbrous imputation of having 
those colossal pagan slabs, and those astounding gen- 
tile excavations, affiliated upon them. • 

Not so fortunate the " Towers." After ransacking 
the whole catalogue of available applications, apper- 
taining to the order of monastic institutions, with 
which to Siamise those temples, Montmorency has, at 
last, hit upon the noble and dignified department of 
a " dun geon -keep " or " lock-up !" as the sole use and 
intention of their original erection ! 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 9 

As I intend, however, to unravel this fallacy in its 
proper quarter, I shall resume, for the present, the 
thread of my discourse. 

Besides the absurdity, then, of bestowing such mag- 
nificence upon so really inconsiderable a thing as a 
belfry, while the supposed churches were doomed to 
dwindle and moulder in decay, is it not astonishing 
that we find no vestiges of the like fashion, or struc- 
tures of the like form, in any of those countries where 
the people, to whom the advocates of this theory 
ascribe their erection, have since and before exercised 
sway? 

The Danes had dominion in Britain longer and 
more extensively than they ever had in this island ; 
and yet, in the whole compass of England, from one 
extremity to the other, is there not one fragment of 
architecture remaining to sanction the idea of identity 
or resemblance ! 

Nay, in all Denmark and Scandinavia, the original 
residence of the Ostmen and Danes, there is not a 
single parallel to be found to those columnar edi- 
fices ! 

Ireland, on the contrary, exhibits them in every 
quarter; in districts and baronies where Danish 
authority was never felt ; and surely our forefathers 
were not so much in love with the usages and habits 
of their barbarian intruders, as to multiply the number 
of those stately piles, solely in imitation of such de- 
tested taskmasters. 

But what renders it demonstrative that those pro- 
fessional pirates had no manner of connexion with the 
Irish ' Round Towers,' is the glaring fact, that in the 
two cities of Wexford and Waterford — where their 
power was absolute, their influence uncontrolled — 



10 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

there is not a solitary structure that could possibly 
be ascribed to the class of those which we now dis- 
cuss ! 

In Scotland alone, of all European countries be- 
sides Ireland, do we meet with two of them : — one at 
Brechin, and the other at Abernethy ; — but they are 
smaller than the Irish, and, with other characteristics, 
seem to have been built, after their model, at a com- 
paratively recent period, by a colony from this coun- 
try, " as if marking the fact," to use Dalton's acciden- 
tally * appropriate phrase, " of that colonization hav- 
ing taken place when the rites, for which the ' Round 
Towers' were erected, in the mother-country, were on 
the decline." 

But, forsooth, they are called " cloghachd " by the 
peasantry, and that, without further dispute, fixes 
their destination as belfries ! Oh ! seri studiorum 
quine difficile putetis ? 

That some of them had been appropriated in latter 
times, nay and still are, to this purpose, I very rea- 
dily concede ; but, " toto ccelo," I deny that such had 
ever entered into the contemplation of their construc- 
tors, as I do, also, the universality of the very name, 
which I myself know, by popular converse, to be but 
partial in its adoption, extending only to such as had 
been converted by the moderns to the ^purpose de- 
scribed, or such as may, originally, have had a clogh, 
or bell, of which I admit there were some, as part of 
their apparatus. 

The first bells of which we have any mention, are 
those described by Moses, as attached to the gar- 

* I sa\ accidentally, because he foundered as well upon the actual co- 
lony, who erected those temples, as upon the nature of the rites for which 
thej were erected. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 11 

ments of the high-priest. From these, the Gentiles, 
as they affected to rival the Israelites in all their 
ceremonies, borrowed the idea, and introduced its 
exercise into the celebration of their own ritual. By 
" Israelites," however, I deem it necessary to explain 
that I do not understand those who, in strictness of 
speech, are so denominated as the descendants of 
Israel, i. e., Jacob, who, in fact, were a comparatively 
modern people ; but I particularize that old stock of 
patriarchal believers which existed from the Creation, 
and upon which the Israelites, rigidly so called, were 
afterwards engrafted. 

Our Irish history abounds with proofs of the 
" ceol," and " ceolan," the bell and the little bell, 
having been used by the pagan priests in the ministry 
of their religious ordinances ; and to the fictitious 
sanctity which they attributed to this instrument may 
we ascribe that superstitious regard, which the illite- 
rate and uneducated still continue to entertain for the 
mnsic of its sound. 

From the Sabian ceremonial- — succeeded by the 
Druidical — it unquestionably was that the Christian 
missionaries in Ireland first adopted the use of bells, 
wishing, wisely, therein to conform as much as pos- 
sible to the prejudices of the natives, when they did 
not essentially interfere with the spirit of their divine 
mission. I shall hereafter relate the astonishment 
excited in England, at the appearance of one of those 
bells, brought there in the beginning of the sixth cen- 
tury by Gildas, who had just returned after finishing 
his education in Ireland ; and this, in itself, should 
satisfy the most incredulous, that the Britons, as well 
pagan as Christian, were ever before strangers to 
such a sight ; and no wonder, for they were strangers 



12 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

also to such things as " Round Towers," to which 1 
shall prove those implements properly and exclu- 
sively belonged. 

u Clogad" is the name, and which literally signifies 
a " pyramid," that has led people into this " belfry" 
mistake. To conclude, therefore, this portion of our 
investigation, I shall observe, in Dr. Milner's words, 
" that none of these towers are large enough for a 
single bell, of a moderate size, to swing about in it ; 
that, from the whole of their form and dimensions, 
and from the smallness of the apertures in them, they 
are rather calculated to stifle than to transmit to a 
distance any sound that is made in them : lastly, that 
though, possibly, a small bell may have been acciden- 
tally put up in one or two of them at some late period, 
yet we constantly find other belfries, or contrivances 
for hanging bells, in the churches adjoining to them." 

I fear greatly I may have bestowed too much pains 
in dispelling the delusion of this preposterous opinion. 
But as it had been put forward with so much confi- 
dence by a much-celebrated " antiquarian," — though 
how he merited the designation I confess myself at a 
loss to know, — I thought it my duty not to content 
myself with the mere exposure of the fallacy, without 
following it up with proofs, which must evermore, I 
trust, encumber its advocates with shame : and the 
rather, as this great champion of Danish civilisation 
and proclaimer of his country's barbarism, is at no 
ordinary trouble to affect ridicule and contempt for 
a most enlightened and meritorious English oflicer, 
who, from the sole suggestion of truth, promoted by 
observation and antiquarian research, stood forward 
as the advocate of our ancestral renown, to make 
amends, as it were, lor the aspersions of domestic 
calumniators. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 13 

Both parties are, however, now appreciated as they 
ought; and though Vallancey, certainly, did not under- 
stand the purport of our " Round Towers," his view 
of them, after all, was not far from being correct ; 
and the laborious industry with which he prosecuted 
his inquiries, and the disinterested warmth with 
which he ushered them into light, should shield his 
memory from every ill-natured sneer, and make every 
child of Iran feel his grateful debtor. 

Having given Milner a little while ago the oppor- 
tunity of tolling the death-knell of the belfry hypo- 
thesis, I think I could not do better now than give 
Ledwich, in return, a triumph, by demolishing the 
symmetry of the anchorite vagary. 

" It must require a warm imagination," says this 
writer, — after quoting the account given by Evagrius, 
of Simeon Stylite's pillar, upon which Richardson, 
Harris, and Milner after them, had founded the an- 
chorite vagary, — " to point out the similarity between 
this pillar and our ' tower :' the one was solid, and 
the other hollow — the one square, and the other cir- 
cular : the ascetic there was placed without on the 
pillar ; with us inclosed in the tower. He adds, 
these habitations of anchorites were called inclusoria, 
or arcti inclusorii ergastula, but these were very diffe- 
rent from our round towers ; for he mistakes Raderus, 
on whom he depends, and who says, f The house of 
the recluse ought to be of stone, the length and 
breadth twelve feet, with three windows, one facino- 
the choir, the other opposite, through which food is 
conveyed to him, and the third for the admission of 
light — the latter to be always covered with glass or 
horn.' 

" Harris, speaking of Donchad O'Brien, Abbot of 



14 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



Clonmacnois, who shut himself up in one of these 
cells, adds, ' I will not take upon me to affirm that it 
was in one of these towers of Clonmacnois he was 
inclosed.' It must have been the strangest perver- 
sion of words and ideas to have attempted it. Is it 
not astonishing that a reverie thus destitute of truth, 
and founded on wilful mistakes of the plainest pas- 
sages, should have been attended to, and even be, for 
some time, believed?" 

Thus have I allowed him to retaliate in his own 
words; but in order to render his victory complete, 
by involving a greater number within his closing 
denunciation, he should have waited until he had 
seen a note appended to the fourteenth of Dr. Milner's 
Letters, which, unquestionably, would deserve a simi- 
lar rebuke for its gross perversion of a " cell " into a 
" tower." 

It is this : — " We learn from St. Bernard, that St. 
Malachy, afterwards Archbishop of Armagh, in the 
twelfth century, applied for religious instruction, when 
a youth, to a holy solitary by name Imams, who was 
shut up in a ' cell,' near the cathedral of the said 
city, probably in a Round Tower" Risum teneatis? 

But I am tired of fencing with shadows and special 
pleading with casuists. And yet, as I would wish 
to render this Essay systematically complete, I am 
forced, however reluctant, to notice the conjecture, 
which others have hazarded, of those " Round Towers" 
having been places of retreat and security in the 
event of invasion from an enemy ; or depositories and 
reservoirs for the records of state, the church utensils 
and national treasures ! 

To the former, I shall reply, that Stanihurst's 
description of the " excubias in castelli vertice," upon 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 15 

which it would seem to have been founded, does not, 
at all, apply to the case ; because, while the " castella" 
have vanished, the "Round Towers,"-— which never be- 
longed to them, — do, many of them still firmly, main- 
tain their post ; and as to the latter, the boldness with 
which it has been put forward, by its author before 
named,* requires a more lengthened examination than 
its utter instability could otherwise justify. 

* Colonel Montmorency. 



16 



CHAPTER II. 



This chivalrous son of Mars, more conversant, I 
should hope, with tactics than with literary disquisi- 
tions, has started with a position, which he is himself, 
shortly after, the most industrious to contradict ; 
namely, " that the gods, to punish so much vanity 
and presumption, had consigned to everlasting obli- 
vion the founders, names, dates, periods, and all 
records relating to them*." 

Surely, if they were intended for the despicable 
dungeons, which the colonel would persuade us was 
their origin, there existed neither " vanity " nor " pre- 
sumption" in that humble design; and when to this 
we add the nature of that security, which he tells us 
they were to establish, one would think that this 
should be a ground for the perpetuity of their regis- 
tration, rather than for consigning their history to 
" everlasting oblivion." 

But secure in the consciousness of the whole history 
of those structures, and satisfied that truth will never 
suffer any thing by condescending to investigation, 
I will, to put the reader in full possession of this 
adversary's statement, here capitulate his arguments 
with all the fidelity of an honourable rival. 

His object, then, being to affix the " Round Towers" 
to the Christian era, he begins by insisting that, as 

* Pliny, Lib. lxvi. cap. 12. 



THE HOUND TOWERS. 17 

" the architects of those buildings were consummate 
masters in masonic art," it follows, that " a people so 
admirably skilled in masonry, never could have expe- 
rienced any impediments in building substantial 
dwellings, strong castles, palaces, or any other struc- 
tures of public or private conveniency, some fragments 
of which, however partial and insignificant, would 
still be likely to appear, in despite of the corroding 
breath of time or the torch of devastation." 

His next argument is, " that the busy and fantastic 
bard, — whose occupation led him to interfere in private 
and public concerns, — who, in truth, (he adds,) is our 
oldest and most circumstantial annalist, — on the subject 
of the Pillar Tower, is dumb and silent as the dead ;" 
whence he infers the " non-existence of those Towers 
during the remote ages of bardic influence," — " and of 
their being utterly unknown to them, and to our ances- 
tors, anterior to the reception of the Christian faith." 

His third proposition is, that as " Strabo, Pompo- 
nius Mela, Solinus, Diodorus Siculus, and other writers 
of antiquity, have represented the condition of Ireland 
and its inhabitants to be barbarous in their days, — in 
common with their neighbours the Britons, Gauls, 
and Germans, to whom the art systematically to 
manufacture stone had been unknown,— ergo, those 
barbarians could not be set up as the authors of the 
Pillar Tower." 

His fourth premise is, that " wherever we chance 
to light upon a cromleach, we seldom fail to find near 
it one of those miserable caves" — and which he has 
described before as " surpassing in dreariness every- 
thing in the imagination of man ;" — whereas in the 
vicinity of the Pillar Tower no such thing is seen* 
unless some natural or accidental excavation may hap- 

c 



18 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

pen to exist unaccountably in that direction." His 
inference from which is, that " although the cromleach 
and the cave do claim, the first a Celtic, the second a 
Phoenician origin, and happen here to be united, the 
Pillar Tower, nevertheless, disavows even the most 
distant connexion with either of them." 

His fifth is a continuation of the foregoing, with an 
erroneous parallelism, viz., " at Bael Heremon, in 
India, not far from Mount Lebanon, there stood a temple 
dedicated to Bael, near to which were many caves, of 
which one was roomy enough to admit into it four 
thousand persons." " The size of those temples," he 
adds, " was regulated according to the extent or 
amount of the local population, being spacious and 
magnificent in large cities, and small and simple in 
the inferior towns and villages ; but nowhere, nor 
in any case, do we meet an example of a lofty spiral 
tower, internally too confined to admit into it at once a 
dozen bulky persons, denominated a temple." 

" An edifice," he resumes, " like the Pillar Tower, 
might easily serve for a belfry ; and there are in- 
stances where it has been converted, in modern times, 
to that use • on the other hand a temple, properly 
speaking, gives an idea of a spacious edifice, or of one 
calculated to accommodate, withinside its walls, a cer- 
tain congregation of devout people, met to pray. 
Should the building, to answer any partial or private 
use, be constructed upon a diminutive scale, like the 
little round temple at Athens # , called Demosthenes' 

* This incomparably beautiful object, constructed of white marble, in 
the days of Demosthenes, in the second year of the one hundred and 
eleventh Olympiad, 335 years before Christ, and in the year 118 of Rome, 
whs erected in honour of some young men of the tribe of Archamantide, 
victors at the public games, and dedicated, it is supposed, to Hercules. 



THE ROUXD TOWERS, 19 

the edifice," he continues, " in that case, obtains its 
appropriate shape, yet differing- in plan, size, and ele- 
vation, from the Irish Pillar Tower, to which it can- 
not, in any one respect, be assimilated." 

" Moreover," he says, " the ancients had hardly any 
round temples. Vitruvius barely speaks of two kinds, 
neither of which bears the slightest resemblance to a 
tower. Upon the whole," concludes he, " if we will 
but bestow a moment's reflection on the geographical 
and political condition of primitive Ireland, and the 
avowed tardy progress towards civilization, and an 
acquaintance with the fine arts, then common to those 
nations not conveniently placed within the enlightened 
and enlivening pale of Attic and Roman instruction, 
it will be impossible not to pronounce Vallanceys 
conjectures respecting the Pillar Tower, as recep- 
tacles for the sacred fire, altogether chimerical and 
fabulous." 

Before I proceed to demolish, seriatim, this tissue 
of cobwebs, I wish it to be emphatically laid down 
that I do not tread in General Vallancey's footsteps. 
To his undoubted services, when temperately guarded, 
I have already paid the tribute of my national grati- 
tude; but, pitying his mistakes, while sick of his 
contradictions, I have taken the liberty to" chalk out 
my own road. 

Now for Montmorency. As to the first, then, of 
those objections against the antiquity of our Round 
Towers, it is readily repelled by explaining that, in 
the early ages of the world, masonic edifices, of archi- 
tectural precision, were exclusively appropriated, as 
a mark of deferential homage, to the worship of the 
Great Architect of the universe ; and with this view it 
was that the science was, at first, studied as a sort of 

* c 2 



20 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 






religious mystery, of which there can be required 
no greater possible corroboration than the circum- 
stance of that ancient and mysterious society who 
date the existence of their institution from Noah him- 
self, and it is incomparably older, still retaining — 
amid the thousand changes which the world has since 
undergone, and the thousand attempts that have been 
made to explore and explode their secrets — the 
mystic denominational ligature of " Free and Accepted 
Masons*: 7 

The absence, therefore, of any vestiges of other 
coeval structures, for private abode or public exhibi- 
tion, should excite in us no surprise ; more especially 
when we recollect that in the East also, — whence all 
our early customs have been derived, — their mud-built 
houses present the greatest possible contrast between 
the simplicity of their domestic residences, and the 
magnificence and grandeur of their religious con- 
venticles — Verum illi delubra deorum pietate, domos 
sua gloria decorabant '|\ 

But though this my reply is triumphantly subver- 
sive of the Colonel's first position, I shall dwell upon 
it a little longer, to hold forth, with merited retalia- 
tion, cither his disingenuousness or his forgetful ness ; 
because the same inference- which he deduced from 
the non-appearance of coeval architecture of any ot/ur 
class, would apply as well to the period which he 
wishes to establish as the era of the erection of the 



1 The first name ever given to this body was Saer, which Las three 

liflcations — firstly, free ; secondly, mason; and thirdly, Son of God. 

In no language could those several imports he united hut in the 

original one, n'z., the Irish. The Hebrews express only one branch of 

it by aliben ; while the English join together the other two. 

■■ Sallust, I lat. Con. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 21 

Towers, — and of which era, he admits, no other archi- 
tectural monuments do remain, — as to that which I 
shall incontrovertibly prove was their proper epoch. 

Then, without having recourse to the impossibility — 
of which all travellers complain — to ascertain even the 
situation of those gigantic cities which in other parts 
of the globe, at equally remote periods of time, were 
cried up as the wonders of the age — the master- 
pieces of human genius, making their domes almost 
kiss the stars — without betaking myself, I say, to 
those, the only memorials of which are now to be 
found in that of the echo, which, to your affrighted 
fancy, asking inquisitively and incredulously, " Where 
are they ?" only repeats responsively, " Where are 
they ?" — passing over this, I tell him that, more highly 
favoured than other countries, we possess, in Ireland, 
ample evidences of those remnants which he so vaunt- 
ingly challenges. Traverse the isle in its inviting 
richness, over its romantic mountains and its fertile 
valleys, and there is scarcely an old wall you meet, or 
an old hedge you encounter, that you will not find — 
imbedded among the mass, — some solitary specimens of 
chiselled execution, which, in their proud, aristocratic 
bearing, afford ocular and eloquent demonstration of 
their having once occupied a more respectable post. 

Not less futile than the foregoing is his second 
objection, arising from what he represents as the 
silence of" the busy and fantastic bard." Doubtless 
he reckoned upon this as his most impregnable bat- 
tery ; and I readily believe that most of his readers 
anticipate the same result; but this little book will 
soon shiver the fallacy of such calculations, and ad- 
duce, in its proper place, — from the very head and 
principal of the bardic order, no less a personage than 



22 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Amergin himself, — its towering refutation ; as well as 
the final, incontrovertible appropriation of those struc- 
tures to their actual founders. 

In the interim, I must not let the opportunity pass 
of vindicating our ancient bards from the false im- 
putations of " busy and fantastic." 

If pride of descent be a weakness of Irishmen, it is 
one in which they are countenanced by all the nations 
of the globe who have had anything like pretensions 
to support the claim ; — and I fearlessly affirm, that the 
more sensitive a people prove themselves of their na- 
tional renown, their hereditary honour, and ancestral 
splendour, the more tenacious will they show themselves, 
in support of that repute, — whether as individuals or 
a community, — in every cause involving the far higher 
interests of moral rectitude, of virtue, and of religion. 
In the legitimate indulgence of this honourable emo- 
tion, the Irish have ever stood conspicuously high. 
No nation ever attended with more religious zeal to 
their acts and genealogies, their wars, alliances, and 
migrations, than they did : and while no people ever 
excelled them in enterprise or heroism, or the wisdom 
and administration of their legislative code, so were 
they surpassed by none in the number and capability 
of those who could delineate such events, and impart 
to reality the additional charm of imagery and verse. 

The Bards were a set of men exclusively devoted, 
like the tribe of Levi amongst the Israelites, to the 
superintendence of those subjects. Their agency in 
this department was a legitimately recognized and 
graduate faculty ; and, in accuracy of speech, the only 
one which merited the designation of learned ; being 
attainable only after the most severe novitiate of preli- 
minary study, and rigid exercise of all the mental 
do wers. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 23 

The industry and patience bestowed on such a 
course were not, however, without their reward. In 
a classical point of view this exhibited itself in the 
high estimation in which they were held, — both 
amongst foreigners and natives, — as poets, as prophets, 
and as philosophers ; while the dignity and emolument 
attached to their situation, and the distinguished rank 
assigned them, at the general triennial assemblies of 
the state, at Tara, — with the endowments conferred 
upon them by the monarch and the several provincial 
kings, — were sure to render it, at all times, an object 
of ambition and pursuit, to members of the noblest 
families throughout the various parts of the realm. 

The moral deportment and personal correctness of 
those literary sages contributed still further to add to 
their esteem ; and, probably, I could not succeed 
better, in depicting the almost sanctity of their general 
behaviour, than by transcribing a stanza, descriptive 
of the qualities which won to them, as a society, the 
mingled sentiments of veneration and of awe. It is 
taken from a very ancient Irish poem, and runs thus : — 

Iod na laimh lith gan ghuin, 
Iod na beorl gan ean neamhuib, 
Iod na foghlaraa gan ean ghes, 
Is iod na lanamh nas. 

That is,— 

Theirs were the hands free from violence, 
Theirs the mouths free from calumny, 
Theirs the learning without pride, 
And theirs the love free from venery. 

In later times, I admit there was a lamentable de- 
generacy in the bardic class ; — or rather the innumer- 
able pretenders to the assumption of the name, and 
the " fescennine licentiousness " with which they vio- 



24 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

lated the sanctity of domestic seclusion, — in exposing 
the objects of their private spleen, — tended not a little 
to bring their body into disrepute, and subject them 
additionally to the salutary restrictions of legisla- 
tive severity. They were not less extravagant in the 
lavishment of their fulsome commendations ; so that 
one can hardly avoid drawing a parallel between them 
and those poetasters, formerly, of Italy, whom Horace 
so happily describes in those remarkable hexameters, 
viz. — 

*' Fescennina per hunc invecta licentia morem, 
Versibus alternis opprobria rustica fudit, 
* * * quin etiam lex 

Poenaque lata raalo quae mallet carmine quenquam, 
Describi*." 

You would imagine the Roman poet was speaking 
of the Irish bards in the night of their decline ; but 
the description by no means applies to the original 
institution, — whose object it was to perpetuate the 
history and records of the nation, and preserve its 
history from the intrusions of barbarism. To this end 
it was, that they met for revision at the senatorial 
synod ; and the importance of this trust, it was, that 
procured to their body the many dignities before de- 
scribed, — giving them precedence above the aggregate 
of the community at large, and investing them with 
an authority little short of royalty. 

Rhyme was the vehicle in which their lucubrations 
were presented ; verse the medium selected for their 
thoughts. To gain perfection in this accomplishment, 
their fancies were ever on the stretch ; while the 
varieties of metre which they invented for the purpose, 
and the facility with which they bent them to each 

* Lib. xi. Epist. 1 1. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 25 

application and use, were not the least astonishing 
part of their arduous avocations, and leave the cata- 
logue of modern measures far away in the shade. 

Music is the sister of poetry, and it is natural to 
suppose that they went hand in hand here. In all 
countries, the voice was the original organ of musical 
sounds. With this they accompanied their extempo- 
raneous hymns ; with this they chanted the honours of 
their heroes. The battle-shout and the solemnity of 
the hour of sacrifice were the usual scenes for the 
concerts of our ancestors. Singing the glory of former 
warriors, the combatant was himself inspired; and 
while the victim expired on the altar of immolation, 
the priest sung the praise of the deity he invoked. 

The introduction of the Christian truths gave a new 
and elevated scope to the genius of the bards. A 
new enthusiasm kindled up their ardour — a new 
vitality invigorated their frames ; and they who, but 
the moment before, were most conspicuous in up- 
holding the dogmas of the pagan creed, became now 
the most distinguished in proclaiming the blessings 
of the Christian dispensation. Fiech, Amergin, 
Columba, Finan, &c, are glorious examples of this 
transmuted zeal. 

About the twelfth or thirteenth centuries, however, 
a change burst forth for the destinies of this order. 
Verse ceased to be used in their historical announce- 
ments. Prose succeeded, as a more simple narrative ; 
and from that moment the respectability of the bards 
progressively evaporated. 

The jealousy of the English government at the 
martial feeling excited by their effusions, and the in- 
trepid acts of heroism inculcated by their example, if 
not the actual cause of this national declension, pre- 



26 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

ponderated very largely amongst its component ingre- 
dients. 

In the height of the battle, when the war-cry was 
most loud, and the carnage most severe, those poetic 
enthusiasts would fling themselves amongst the ranks 
of the enraged contenders, and determine the victory 
to whatever party they chose to befriend. 

When, too, under the pressure of an untoward fate, 
and the disheartening yoke of — what they deemed — a 
treacherous subjugation, the nobles would seem dis- 
pirited at the aspect of circumstances, and all but sub- 
scribe to the thraldom of slavery, the bards would 
rouse the energies of their slumbering patriotism, and, 
as Tyrtaaus used the Spartans, enkindle in their 
bosoms a passion for war. We must not be surprised, 
therefore, to find in the preamble to some of the acts 
passed in those times for the suppression of this body 
of men, the following harsh and depreciating allu- 
sions ; viz., (C That those rymors do, by their ditties 
and rymes made to divers lords and gentlemen in 
Ireland, in the commendacyon and high praise of ex- 
tortion, rebellyon, rape, raven, and outhere injustice, 
encourage those lords and gentlemen rather to follow 
those vices than to leave them." 

For two centuries after the invasion of Henry II., 
the voice of the Muse was but faintly heard in Ireland. 
The arms of Cromwell and William III. completely 
swept away her feudal reminiscences. As it was 
their country's lustre that inspired the enthusiasm of 
the bards, so, on the tarnishing of its honour, did they 
become mute and spiritless, They fell with its fall ; 
and, like the captive Israelites, hanging their untuned 
harps on the willows, they may be supposed to ex- 
claim, in all the vehemence of the royal psalmist, — 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 27 

" Now while our harps were hanged soe, 
The men whose captives there we lay 
Did on our griefs insulting goe, 
And more to grieve us thus did say : 
You that of musique make such show, 
Come, sing us now a Zion lay. — 
Oh ! no, we have nor voice nor hand 
For such a song in such a land." 

Montmorency's third objection against the antiquity 
of the " Round Towers," — founded on the statements 
of those Greek and Latin writers above named, re- 
specting- the " barbarous " condition of the then Irish, 
— I thus dissipate into thin air. 

The inhabitants of Ireland, at the time in which 
those authors flourished, had nothing to do with the 
erection of the Round Towers. Those edifices were 
hoary with antiquity at that moment. They belonged 
to an aera and to a dynasty, not only of a more ancient 
but of a more exalted character in every sense of the 
word, and whose religious ceremonials, for the cele- 
bration of which the Round Towers were constructed, 
the then inhabitants did not only abhor, but did all in 
their power to efface and obliterate. Nor was it the 
religion alone, of this inoffensive and sacred tribe, that 
this new and devastating race of militants laboured to 
extirpate ; but, what was far more to be deplored, 
they, for a season, extinguished their literature also ; 
until at length, fired by the moral ether which the 
, lessons of their now slaves had inspired, their souls 
got attuned to the sublimity of such studies, and they 
sat themselves down accordingly to emulate their in- 
structors. 

As to the puny detractions, therefore, of either 
Greece or Rome, they might well have been spared, 
as they knew less than nothing of our real history. 



28 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

When they were lowly and obscure, and immersed in 
the darkness of circumambient benightment, our high 
careering name, synonymous with civilization, was 
wafted by the four winds of heaven to all the quarters 
of the world which that heaven irradiates. The com- 
merce of the whole east pressed tumultuously to our 
shores — the courts of the polished universe (not in- 
cluding Greece or Rome amongst the number) sent us 
embassies of congratulation ; while the indomitable ar- 
dour and public-spirited zeal of the " islanders" them- 
selves launched them abroad over the bosom of the wide 
watery circumference ; exploring in every region the 
gradations of civil institutes, as well as the master pro- 
ductions of Nature herself; civilizing life with the 
results of their discoveries, and garnishing their houses, 
like so many museums, with the fruits of their re- 
search, for the benefit, at once, and entertainment of 
their less favoured, though not less ambitious brethren 
at home. 

Think you that the testimony of Festus Avienus, 
who wrote before the Christian light, and who, avow- 
edly, only compiled his treatise from other more 
ancient authorities — think you, I say, that his desig- 
nation of this island as " sacred," — and which he says 
was the appropriate denomination by which the still 
greater ancients used to call it, — was an idle sobriquet 
or an arbitrary adjective ? Amongst the many dis- 
coveries which will develop themselves in succession, 
before I shall have done with this little book, I pledge 
myself to the public incontrovertibly to prove, that 
the word " Hibernian" — so grossly abused and so 
malignantly vilified, and which Avienus has recorded 
as the name of the islanders at the period in which he 
wrote, as it is still to this day — signifies — in its com- 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 29 

ponent essence, and according to the nicest scrutiny of 
etymological analysis, independently altogether of his- 
torical corroboration — an inhabitant of the sacred isle ; 
and has nothing on earth to do with Heber or Here- 
mon ; or hiar, the west ; or iberin, extremes ; or any 
other such outlandish nonsense ! 

Now comes the Colonel's fifth and last objection; 
viz., that because there existed at Baal Heremon, in 
India, a temple sacred to Baal, the capacity of which 
was sufficient to accommodate four thousand persons, 
therefore the Round Towers, which are " internally 
too confined to admit into them, at once, a dozen bulky 
persons, could not be denominated a temple." 

Does not the Colonel know that there existed a 
plurality of those Baals ? that, in fact, they were as 
innumerable as the stars in the firmament, resolving 
themselves — according to the character of every distinct 
country, and of every minor subdivision and canton in 
that country — into the specific and gentile classifica- 
tions, of Baal Shamaim, Baal Pheor or Phearagh, Baal 
Meon, Baal Zephon, Baal Hemon, &c. ; while under 
the veil of all, the learned ever understood to have been 
solely personated, the sun and moon. " Howbeit 
every nation made gods of their own, and the men of 
Babylon made Succoth-Benoth *." 

In accordance with the different views under which 
each people considered the bounties of those lumi- 
naries, so did their temples assume a corresponding 
shape ; and it shall be my lot, in the progress of this 
litigated research, to show why the followers of one 
of those Baals, namely, Baal Phearagh, gave their 
temples this erect, narrow, and elevated roundness. 

I have thus annihilated those visionary ramparts, 

* 2 Kings xvii. 29, 30. 



30 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

which my opponent had nattered himself he had raised 
against the intrusion of long-suppressed truth ; and 
by the help of which, as a military bastion, he had 
fondly hoped he might link together the church and 
the sword in one cemented bond of anachronism. Let 
us see, however, how he would bring about the match, 
with the articles of intermarriage, and so forth. 

His assumption is, that " the founders of those 
Towers were primitive Coenobites and Bishops, muni- 
ficently supported in the undertaking by the newly- 
converted kings and toparchs ; the builders and 
architects being those monks and pilgrims who, from 
Greece and Rome, either preceded or accompanied 
our early missionaries in the fifth and sixth cen- 
turies ;" which he pretends to substantiate in the 
following manner. 

Having discovered, by a most miraculous effort of 
penetration, that one hundred and fifty Greek and 
Roman religionists had accompanied St. Abhan on 
his return from imperial Rome, — whither he had gone 
to complete his theological studies, towards the end of 
the fifth century, — and not knowing how to occupy 
those strangers in this then pagan land, the Colonel, 
with his industrious habits, well aware that " idleness 
is the mother of mischief," sets them, at once, about 
building the Towers. 

But as it would be too lavish a display of knight- 
errantry to waste their time and strength without some 
ostensible purpose, he must, of course, find out for 
them a pretext, at least, for such ; and so, in the eager- 
ness of his milito-monastic zeal, he flies off, at a tangent, 
to the top of mount Colzouin, near the desert of Gebel, 
— "a short day's journey from the Red Sea," — where he 
thinks he has got, in the monasteries of the Egyptian 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 31 

monks, a direct, immediate, and indubitable proto- 
type. . 

Reader, you shall be the judge. Here is his own 
translation of Bonnani's description of the place, viz. 

" There are three churches, of which St. Anthony's, 
which is small and very old, is the most distinguished ; 
the second is dedicated to the apostles Peter and 
Paul ; and the third church is raised in honour of St. 
Macaire, who has been a lay brother in this convent. 
All of the cells stand separately from each other; they 
are ill built, the walls being composed of clay, covered 
in with flat roofs, and diminutive windows only one 
foot square. Close to the refectory, which is dark 
and dirty, the monks have added a rather decent apart- 
ment, in their wonted hospitality, destined to the 
reception of visiters. 

" Within the central court-yard, an isolated square 
tower of masonry, which is approached by a drawbridge, 
holds a formidable station. Here the Cophtes preserve 
whatever wealth or precious objects they possess ; 
and if assailed by the plundering Arabs, defend them- 
selves with stones. There are four more celebrated 
monasteries in the desert of St. Macaire, distant about 
three days' journey from Grand Cairo. The first is 
the convent of St. Macaire, which is ancient and in a 
ruinous state — the bones of the founder are enshrined 
in a stone coffin, placed behind an iron gate, en- 
veloped in a chafe or pluvial (a sort of church orna- 
ment), formed into a canopy. A square tower of 
stone, which you enter by a drawbridge, is the only 
solid building belonging to the Abbey that remains. 
The friars store their books and their provisions, and 
obstinately defend themselves in this hold, whenever 
the wild Arabs come to pay them a predatory visit. 



32 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



" There are similar (square) towers attached to the 
three other monasteries in the desert, the doors of 
which, and of the convent of St. Macaire, are alike 
covered with iron plates," &c. &c. 

To the candid and dispassionate reader, — who has 
gone through this extract, and who is told that this is 
the basis upon which Colonel de Montmorency builds 
his superstructure of monastic appropriation, — to such 
I fearlessly appeal whether he will not scout the in- 
dignity with intellectual scorn. 

Here are edifices spread, in numbers, over our 
island, in unity of design and elegance of execution, 
admitted by this writer himself as " the most imposing 
objects of antiquity in all Christendom," and " placed 
by an almost supernatural power .to brave the stormy 
winds and the wrath of time ;" yet, in the same breath, 
made the counterparts of a few trumpery, temporary, and 
crazy old piles, which were originally erected as mili- 
tary stations, totally distinct from religion or religious 
uses — similar to those erected by Helena, mother to 
Constantine the Great, on the coast of Syria, against 
piratical incursions, and analogous to what we find 
in India, viz., a whole fortress converted into a con- 
ventual establishment. The thing is absurd, — it is 
revolting to common sense, — and bears on its forehead 
its own discomfiture. 



33 



CHAPTER III. 

Observe, then, the structures which he compares are 
altogether different ; one being square, and the other 
round. Nor, in the whole compass of possible analo- 
gies, is there a single feature in which the two classes 
of edifices could be said to correspond, but that 
they both have their doors — which, by the way, are 
different in their form — at a distance from the ground. 
The Pyramids of Egypt bear the same correspondence, 
— their entrance being one-third of the height from the 
surface — and why does not the Colonel bestow them 
also upon the monks ? No ; those poor, denuded, 
inoffensive, exemplary, unearthly victims of maceration, 
were incapable of, either the masonic acme, or, — at the 
era which Montmorency particularises, — of the corpo- 
rate influence and pecuniary or equivalent supplies, 
indispensable for the erection of either " pyramid " or 
" tower ; " — contenting themselves rather with their 
lowly cells, whence they issued out, at all seasons, 
to diffuse the word of " life," than in raising may- 
poles of stone, within which to garrison their inexpres- 
sible treasures. 

But to reconcile this discrepancy in exterior outfit, 
he has recourse to a miracle, which he thus conjures 
up. " Doubtless, in the beginning, when first those 
Coenobites settled in the desert, the convent-tower 
was round ;" theft, by a single word, prcesto, — or 

D 



34 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

" doubtless " — right-about face, takes place a meta- 
morphosis, from round to square ! — the more miracu- 
lous, in that the former round ones left behind them 
no vestiges ! Upon which, again, a counter miracle 
is effected; — tl The square ones having subsequently 
fallen into disuse, the round tower, in after ages," — he 
says, — " appears to have acquired a degree of increased 
celebrity, especially in Europe, during the preponder- 
ance of the feudal system, when every baronial castle 
in Great Britain, Ireland, Germany, France, &c, was 
furnished with one or more." Now, has he not before 
told us, and told us truly, by chance, that the Pillar 
Tower scorns all kind of affinity with those " barba- 
rians ;" whereupon I shall merely observe with the 
poet, that — 

" If people contradict themselves, can / 
Help contradicting them * ?" 

But, if intended as a place of shelter for either 
person or property, why build them of such an alti- 
tude ? Above all things, why not build them of such 
internal capacity as to accommodate the whole number 
of inmates in each convent, in case of an attack, — as, in 
fact, those square towers in the desert used ; whereas, 
" a dozen bulky persons " could not squeeze together 
into one of our Round Towers ; and accordingly, with 
the inconsistency inseparable from error, our author 
himself proclaims, that "it has frequently occurred 
that the barbarian, on finding that he had been foiled 
in his search after treasures, though he burned the 
abbey, and perpetrated all the mischief he was able, 
sooner than retire empty-handed, the pirate seized on 
the abbot, or most prominent member he found be- 

1 B\ ron. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 35 

longing to the community, and hurried away the un- 
fortunate individual on board his ship, holding him in 
durance, till, overcome by ill-usage, he besought his 
brethren to come to his relief with a heavy ransom for 
his freedom." " It has also often happened," he adds, 
" that, unable to comply with the tyrant's exorbitant 
demands, the monks resigned the captive to his fate." 

Surely, if they had those keeps to fly to, the " un- 
fortunate " abbot need not allow himself to be seized 
at all : and surely, also, if they had all those treasures 
upon which the Colonel insists, they would not leave 
the father of their " community " unredeemed from so 
excruciating a degradation. And hence we may con- 
clude with Dr. Lanigan, " What little credit is due 
to the stories of some hagiologists, who talk of great 
estates granted to our monasteries and churches in 
those and even earlier times *." Indeed, for the two 
first centuries subsequent to the arrival of St. Patrick, 
such a thing was incompatible with the nature of the 
" political compact " in Ireland. 

I do not deny, however, but that the ecclesiastics of 
this time did possess some articles of value appertain- 
ing to the altar, and that these were objects of unholy 
cupidity to the Danes : nay further, I admit that, to 
escape from the insatiability of those virulent marau- 
ders, they used to fly to the belfries, which — from that 
mistaken regard attached to these edifices, as the re- 
ceptacles of those sonorous organs to which super- 
stition has ever clung f — they had hoped would prove 



* Vol. iii. p. 78— Note. 

f The tolling of a bell was supposed to have had miraculous effects — 
to keep the spirits of darkness from assaulting believers — to dispel thun- 
der, and prevent the devil from molesting either the church or congre- 
gation ; and hence they were always rung, in time of storm or other 

r> 2 



36" THE ROUND TOWERS. 

an asylum from their pursuits, — but in vain — neither 
religion nor superstition opposed a barrier to the North- 
men, while the frail materials whereof those belfries 
were constructed afforded a ready gratification to their 
appetite for destruction. 

The Ulster Annals, year 949, furnish us with the 
following fact ; " Cloicteach Slane do loscadh do Gall 
Athacliath. Bacall ind Erlamha, 7 cloc badec do 
cloccaibh, Caenechair Ferleghinn, 7 sochaide mor inbi 
do loscadh." That is, The belfry at Slane was set fire 
to by the foreigners (the Danes) of Dublin. The 
pastor's staff or crozier, adorned with precious stones, 
besides the principal bells, and Canecar the lecturer, 
with a multitude of other persons, were burned in the 
flames. The Annals of the Four Masters, noticing the 
same event, use nearly similar words : — " Cloicteach 
Slaine do loscadh can a Ian do mhionnaibh 7 deghdh 
aoninibh, im Chseinechair Fearleighinn Slaine, Bachall 
an Eramha 7 clocc ba deach do chloccaibh." That is, 
The belfry at Slane was burned to the ground, along 
with several articles of value which were therein, and 
numbers of individuals, besides the Slane praelector, the 
patron's staff, and all the bells, which were there of 
most worth. 

Now take notice that within those " belfries " a 
" multitude of persons" used to have been collected, 

attack, in paralyze the Bend, whether the elements or mortal man, bj 
the hallowed intonation. Each was dedicated to a particular saint.- dulj 
baptized and consecrated : and the inscriptions which still remain on the 
old ones thai have come down to us proclaim the virtue of their capabi- 
lities. T'hr Hill wing distich will he found to sum them up, \iz. : 
. " Laudo Deuro verum, plebem voce, congrego clerum, 
Defunctos plero, pestemfugo, festa decoro.' 
And the \er\ syllables of this which follows form a sorl of tuneful gal- 
loping, viz : 

" Sabbuta pan go, funera plan go, solemnia clango." 



THE ROl'XD TOWERS. '37 



whereas the Round Towers could not accommodate 
above " a dozen " at one time. The belfries also are 
represented to have been reduced to ashes b}^ the con- 
flagration, which accords with the description given 
by both Ware and Colgan, of the wooden substance 
whereof they were composed ; whereas the Round 
Towers are made of stone, and cemented bv a bond of 
such indurated tenacity, that nothing short of light- 
ning or earthquake has been known to disturb them : — 
and even though other violence may succeed in their 
overthrow, yet could it not be said with any accuracy 
that they were reduced by fire to cinders. But, above 
all, those very Annals which I have above quoted, 
when recording a greater and national calamity, 
place the belfries and the Round Towers in the same 
sentence, contradistinguished from one another, — the 
former characterized by their appropriate name of 
Cloicteach, as exhibited before, and the latter under 
the still more apposite denomination of Fidh-nemeadh, 
as we shall explain elsewhere. 

Again, if designed as fortresses for the monks, and 
receptacles for their riches, is it not strange, that in 
the isle of Hy, — which was literally a nest of ecclesi- 
astics, and which Columb Kill himself evangelized at 
the time when Montmorency was, — in a dream, — em- 
ploying him and his coadjutors at the erection of 
the Round Towers, — is it not strange, I say, that this 
little isle, the most defenceless, as it is, and forlorn, of all 
lands that ever projected above the bosom of the sea, 
should yet, in the allotment of monastic artillery, be 
left totally destitute of an aerial garrison ? 

And yet, notwithstanding the absence of such de- 
fences, the monks still continued to make it their 
favourite abode ; of which we have but too cogent an 



38 THE HOUND TOWERS. 

evidence in the record of the Four Masters, under the 
year 985. stating that the abbot and fifteen of his 
brethren were slain by the Northmen on Christmas- 
day, just as they were preparing to celebrate the 
nativity of their Redeemer. 

But those monks spread themselves, in shoals, over 
England also ; and we know that that country was 
even more infested than our own with both Northmen 
and Danes. Is it not astonishing, therefore, that the 
English convents were not protected against the sacri- 
lege of those savages by telescopic steeples of Baby- 
lonish cement ? 

This, it may be said, is applying a steam-engine to 
crush a flapwing; yet, as that flapwing has been 
somewhat troublesome, and has contrived to blindfold 
some searchers after antiquarian truth, I may be ex- 
cused if, to frustrate any efforts at impotent revivals, 
I shall continue decapitating the hydra, until he dis- 
appears in his own sinuosities. 

He tells us, then, with all the calculation of an en- 
gineer, and the gravity of a physician, that a stone 
let fall from the top of one of those towers would 
crush the " barbarian v to atoms. True, it would, 
and the civilian also. A little pebble let fall from an 
eagle's beak, as he cuts his aerial passage through the 
cloudy regions, or soars aloft into the empyreal of 
interminable space, would have a similar effect ; but 
it would puzzle the shrewdest engineer in Christen- 
dom to place a ballast-man, with a big stone on his 
lap, on either the top or the sloping sides of the 
conical " caubeen " which graces the summit of our 
careering cylinders. This, to use the Colonel's own 
words, " will be admitted to be contrary to all that, is 
admissible in the rules of architectural proportions.'- 




llif -:- 



ISP 



[To face page 38. 



DEVENISH. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 39 

Next, remark that the Colonel keeps those 150 
" volunteers" at work upon the " Round Towers," in 
the midst of a raging war ; — after he had before 
affirmed that they could only be erected in a season 
of profound peace — for a complete century. During 
this whole time they must, of course, have availed 
themselves of the assistance of the inhabitants • and 
is it not marvellous that, during that long time, " the 
ancient Irishman," — and " Pat's nae stupid fellow," 
as the Colonel himself avows, — should not have been 
able to pick up a single insight into the arcana of the 
masonic art ? — but that, soon as ever the dear externs 
expired, — who at the period of their arrival must have 
been, at least, over twenty years of age, each, and who, 
to accomplish Montmorency's miracle, must have, 
every one of them, lived just one hundred years more, 
and then died, all in one day ! — is it not petrifying, I say, 
that soon as ever this appalling catastrophe occurred, 
every vestige of those " fairy " masons should have 
vanished along with them ? — and the country, in a pa- 
ralysis, have forgotten to associate them with the 
" Towers," as if stupified with the incantation of a 
wizard or a talisman ! 

And yet this was not the greatest injustice of which 
the poor Coenobites got reason to complain ; but it is 
that, when the people had recovered from the deli- 
rium of their late trance, and began to look abroad 
for some " authors " on whom to father those edifices, 
they unanimously, though unaccountably, agreed to 
lay them at the door of the " O'Rorkes " and the 
" Mac Carthy Mores!" 

It so happens that the last of the Mac Carthy Mores 
was my own maternal grandfather; and he, venerable 
and venerated old gentleman, apt as he was, in the 



40 THE ROUXD TOWERS. 

evening of his faded life, to revert to the mutability 
of worldly possessions, never, for a moment, bestowed 
a solitary thought upon the alienation of the property 
of those columnar masonries. Often used he to men- 
tion the castles of Palace and of Blarney : Castlemain 
and Glenflesk used still oftener to grace his talk ; but 
oftener still, and with more apparent delectation, 
would he dilate on the Castle of Macroom and the 
Abbey of Mucruss, — all, as the creation of immediate. 
or collateral branches of his family : but never, in the 
catalogue of his patrimonial spoliations, did he enu- 
merate a " Hound Tower,'" or lay a shadow of claim 
to their construction. 

To the point, however. — The great miracle, after all, 
is, that after the decease of those " fairy " masters, 
no one of their native helpmates could be found able 
to join together, with mechanical skill, two pieces of 
hewn stone with the intermediate amalgam of adhe- 
sive mortar ! The thing is so absurd as to make the 
Colonel himself, in his honesty, to exclaim, " Is this 
simple process that mighty piece of necromancy 
which, according to some authors (forgetting that he 
was one of those himself), that lively people were 
unable to comprehend ? " It is amusing to see how 
encomiastic and commendatory he is of the " Hiber- 
nians," when it answers his views ; and how vitu- 
perative and condemnatory, when it is equally to his 
purpose. 

The last assumption of this writer, and which I 
have purposely reserved until now, is an affected 
parallel of the Irish Culdees with the Egyptian 
Cophtes. " Their great piety, austerity, and hospi- 
tality announce,"' lie says, " the existence of one kind 
of discipline, and of kindred religions, between tin 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 41 

Cophtes and the Irish Coenobites." That is, because 
they are both pious, austere, and hospitable, they must 
both necessarily correspond in religious opinions and 
in Church forms ! The Indian Brahmins, say I, are 
also pious, austere, and hospitable ; and why are they 
not incorporated in this holy identification ? No, 
Colonel, it will not do ; I see what you are at. You 
want to insinuate our obligation to the Greeks for the 
blessings of the Gospel. A false zeal for mental 
emancipation, — subsequent to the dislodgment of 
spiritual encroachment, — has forced into mushroom 
existence this spurious abortion. Aloof from the 
thraldom of Roman or other yoke, the Irish, within 
themselves, cultivated the principles of the Christian 
verity; but it is, in the extreme, erroneous to say, that 
they derived their faith in that verity through emissa- 
ries of the Grecian church, from whom they differed 
as substantially as light does from darkness. 

I think it very probable indeed, that the glad tidings 
of revelation were first imparted to Ireland by the lips 
of St. Paul himself*. We have the names of manv 
Christians existing amongst us before the arrival of 
either Pelagius or Patrick. The very terms of the 
commission, which pope Celestine gave to the former, 
being addressed " ad Scotos in Christum credentes," 
to the Irish who believe in Christ, — prove the good seed 
had been laid in the soil before his pontificate. The 
nation, however, was yet too much immersed in its 



* vrfij) <rov CIh.io.vov WtzgiXhiv ssri ra; KaXouftiva; Bgtravixa; v/i<rov;. 

Euseb. in Prsep. Ev. 1. 3. 

Egyptum et Libyam sortitus est alius Apostolorum, extremas vero 
oceani regiones, et Insulas Britannicas alius obtinuit. 

Nicephor., 1. 2, c. 40. 



42 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

old idolatries — and the fascinations of their former 
creed had so spell-bound the inhabitants, as a com- 
munity — that those who singled themselves out as 
converts to the new faith were obliged, from persecu- 
tion, to betake themselves to other countries. And 
yet this is the moment, when paganism was omnipotent 
throughout this island, that Colonel de Montmorency 
has the modesty to tell us that the " Round Towers " 
were erected as magazines for the monks ! 

To the Patrician Apostle, the beloved patriarch of 
Ireland, was reserved the glory of maturing the fruit 
which his predecessors had planted. His constitu- 
tional zeal and absorbing devotion, in the service of 
his Creator, were but the secondary qualifications 
which pre-eminently marked him out for so hazardous 
an enterprise. The primary and grand facility which 
this true hero possessed for the attainment of his great 
design, was his intimate converse with the manners 
and language of the natives,— obtained during his cap- 
tivity not long before, — which making way at once to 
the hearts of his auditory, was an irresistible passport 
to their heads and their understandings. 

In the sequel of this volume it will be fully shown, 
that when St. Patrick entered upon his prescribed task, 
— towards the close of the fifth century, — the monarch 
and his court were celebrating their pagan festival, or 
preparing for it, on the hill of Tara. Can a nation be 
called Christian where the sovereign and court are 
Pagan ? Or will a few exceptions from the mass of 
the population be indulged with fortresses of im- 
perishable architecture, while the nation at large took 
shelter within ivattlescind walls of clay?— and that, too, 
at a moment when Christianity was considered a name 



THE HOUND TOWERS. 43 

of reproach, and its few solitary abettors constrained to 
exile or to degradation ! 

No sooner, however, were the simplicities of Chris- 
tianity expounded to the natives through the medium 
of their native tongue, than the refined organism of 
the Irish constitution, habituated by discipline to sub- 
lime pursuits, took fire from the blaze of the sacred 
scintilla, and enlisted them as its heralds, not only at 
home but throughout Europe. 

Precisely at this instant it was that all the ancient 
names of places in the island — recorded by Ptolemy 
from other foreign geographers, — were changed and 
new-modelled — the converts — i( ut in nova deditione," — 
not thinking it sufficient to abandon the forms of 
their previous belief, and adopt the more pure one, if 
they did not obliterate every vestige of nominal asso- 
ciation, which could tend to recall their fancies to the 
religion which they relinquished. Accordingly from 
the names of Juernis, Macollicon, Rhigia, Nagnata, 
Rheba, &c , sprung up the names of Killkenny, Kill- 
malloch, and the thousand other names, commencing 
with " Kill," to be met with in every district and sub- 
division throughout the country. 

Every corner was now the scene of Christian zeal ; 
and every neophyte strove to surpass his neighbour 
in evincing devotion to the newly-revealed religion. 
" Kills," or little churches — from the Latin cella, now 
for the first time introduced — were built in the vicinity 
of every spot which had before been the theatre of 
pagan adoration — whether as cromleachs, as mi- 
thratic caves, or as Round Towers. These were the 
memorials of three distinct species of paganism, and 
were, therefore, now singled out as appropriate sites 
for the erection of Christian " Kills," the ruins of 



44 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

which are still to be traced, contiguous to each of 
those idolatrous reminiscences, — disputing with the 
false divinities the very ground of their worship, and 
diverting the zeal of the worshippers from the creature 
to the Creator. 

Nay, to such a pitch did the crusaders, in their 
conflict, carry the principle of their enthusiasm, that 
many of them adopted the names of their late idols, 
and intertwined those again, — now christianly appro- 
priated, — with, the old favourite denominations of many 
of the localities. For instance, St. Shannon assumed 
that name from the river Shannon, which was an ob- 
ject of deification some time before ; and St. Malloch 
adopted this name from the city of Malloch, that is, the 
Sun, or Apollo, — the supreme idol of pagan Ireland's 
adoration, — from which again, with the prefix " Kill," 
he made the name K.i\\-?nalloch, — the latter alone hav- 
ing been the ancient name of the place, converted by 
Ptolemy into " Macollicon ;" which is only giving his 
Greek termination, icon, to the Irish word. Malloch, and 
transposing, for sound sake, the two middle syllables. 

Chaildee was the pious but appropriate epithet by 
which those patriarchs of Christianity thought fit to 
distinguish themselves. The word means associate of 
God. Having obtained the gospel from the see of 
Rome, they adhered implicitly, — yet Avithout con- 
ceding any superiority, — to the Roman connexion — 
agreeing in all the grand essentials of vital belief, 
and differing only as to some minor points of eccle- 
siastical discipline. 

This variance, however, has afforded handle to some 
lovers of controversial doubt, to maintain that Ireland 
was never beholden to Rome for the gospel. The 
fallacy is disproved by the Pad <>t ;ill our early neo 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 4-J 

phytes betaking themselves, for perfection in the 
mysteries of revelation, to the Roman capital. On 
one of which occasions it was that Montmorency 
himself brought over his hundred and fifty volunteers, 
to accompany back one of those converted students, 
who had gone there to learn the very minuteness of 
the doctrine which the Romans inculcated. 

It was not, remember, for ordinary or secular edu- 
cation that they betook themselves to Rome. The 
academies of Ireland far surpassed it in splendour. 
It was solely and exclusively to learn the particulars 
of their faith ; and having once obtained this insight, 
they continued in spiritual unison with the tenets of 
that church, as to all fundamental points of doctrine : 
never surrendering, however, the independence of their 
judgment, nor bowing before the " ipse dixit " of any 
tribunal, — where reason was to be the guide, — until 
forced by the conspiracy of Pope Adrian IV. and his 
countryman Henry II. 

How contemptible, therefore, is the effort, in the 
teeth of this exposure, to identify the Irish Chaildees 
with the Egyptian Cophtes ! There was no one point 
in which they may be compared, except their mutual 
poverty ; which, however, Montmorency overlooks, or 
rather contradicts, making them both wealthy, and 
have banks even for their riches. As, however, I look 
upon Dr. Hurd * as somewhat a better authority, you 
shall have what he says upon the subject : — 

" Among the Ethiopians, there are still to be found 
some monks, called Coptics, who first flourished in 
Egypt, but, by no difficult sort of gradation, made 
their way into Ethiopia. They profess the utmost 

* Religious Rites and Ceremonies, published under his name. 



46 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

contempt for all ivorldly things, and look upon them- 
selves as a sort of terrestrial angels. They are obliged 
to part with all their possessions before they can enter 
upon a monastic life." 

Their discrepancy in doctrine is even still more 
notorious, agreeing with the Chaildees only in a single 
instance also ; namely, in both denying the supre- 
macy of the Pope. Here are the Doctor's words : — 
" They deny the papal supremacy, and, indeed, most 
parts of the popish doctrine, particularly transubstan- 
tiation, purgatory, auricular confession, celibacy of the 
clergy, and extreme unction ;" all which, save the first, 
the Irish Chaildees maintained in common with the see 
of Rome. 

And now, on the point of education, I will content 
myself with Montmorency's own testimony, which is 
to this effect, viz. : — " Only on the score of erudition, 
it must be acknowledged that the Irish theologian, as 
history asserts, did not only excel the modern Greek 
and Egyptian, but his profound acquaintance with the 
sciences, arts, and laws of his country, gave him an 
unrivalled superiority in the literary and civilized 
world." 

What, Colonel ! are those the " barbarians ?" Is 
this what you mean by not being conveniently situated 
within the enlightened and enlivening influence of 
Greek and Roman refinement ? Alas ! you knew but 
little of the real statement of the case : — whilst the 
illustrious Fenelon, himself a descendant of this 
boasted Rome, thus more accurately avows, " that, 
notwithstanding all the pretended politeness of the 
Greeks and Romans, yet, as to moral virtue and reli- 
gious obligations, they were no better than the savages 
of America." 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 47 

I have been thus hurried on by the train of my 
thoughts, without observing much of order or metho- 
dical arrangement. As my object is, however, the 
elucidation of truth, — not idle display, or vain-glo- 
rious exhibition, — I am sure my readers will scarce 
murmur at the course by which I shall have led them 
to that end ; in a question, moreover, where so many 
adventurers have so miserably miscarried. 

So much the rather, thou celestial light, 

Shine inward, and the mind through all her powers 

Irradiate. There plant eyes ; all mist from thence 

Purge and disperse ; that I may see and tell 

Of things invisible to mortal sight *. 

* Milton. 



48 



CHAPTER IV. 

Having thus disposed of the word " Cloic-teach/' 
which Dr. Ledwich so relied upon, as determining 
the character of these antique remains, I take leave, 
evermore, to discard the misnomer, and draw atten- 
tion to a name which I have never seen noticed, as 
applied to any of those pyramidal edifices. That 
which I allude to is " Cathoir ghall," which means the 
" Cathedral or temple of brightness" (" and delight*;'') 
not, I must premise, from any external daubing, with 
which modern Vandalism may have thought proper to 
incrust it,— as happened to that at Swords, — but in 
evident reference to the solar and lunar light, — the 
sources of life and generation, — therein contemplated, 
at once, and interchangeably venerated. 

The particular Tower to which this epithet had 
been assigned— and which it obtained, by way of 
eminence, for its colossal superiority — is not now 
standing f. It rose about half a mile distant from 
the old castle of Bally Carbery, in the barony of 
Iveragh, and county of Kerry ; a place where one 
would hope that the true designation of such phe- 
nomena would be preserved most pure, being aloof 
from the influence of exotic r finements, and, thus 



* This latter to be explained hereafter. 
Thu ruins, to the heighl often feet, still remain. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 49 

far, free from that maudlin scepticism and laboured 
doubt which a " little learning" too frequently super- 
induces. 

Dear, lovely bowers of innocence and ease, — 
Seats of my youth, when ev'ry sport could please, — 
How often have I loiter'd o'er thy green, 
When humble happiness endear'd each scene ! 
How often have I paused on every charm, — 
The shelter d cot, the cultivated farm ! 
While all the village train, from labour free, 
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree *. 

No combination of letters could possibly approach 
closer, or convey to a discerning mind greater affinity 
of meaning to anything, than does the above name to 
the description given of them in the 12th century by 
Giraldus Cambrensis, who calls them " turres eccle- 
siastical, qua?, more patriae, arctse sunt et altae, nee non 
et rotundas." This definition, vague as it may seem, 
affords ample illumination, when compared with the 
epithet which I have above adduced, to penetrate the 
darkness of this literary nebula. The word "turres" 
points out their constructional symmetry, and " eccle- 
siasticas " their appropriation to a religious use ; and 
what can possibly be in stricter consonance with the 
tenour of this idea than '? Cathaoir ghall," or the 
Temple of Brightness, which I have instanced above 
as the vernacular appellation of one of those sanctu- 
aries ? 

Should it be asked, why did not Cambrensis, at 
the time, enter more fully into the minutiee of their 
detail ? I shall unhesitatingly answer, it was because 
he knew nothing more about them. The Irish had at 
that moment most lamentably dwindled into a de- 

* Goldsmith. 



50 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

generate race. The noble spirit of their heroic an- 
cestors, which had called forth those pyramids, for the 
twofold and mingled purpose of religion and science, 
had already evaporated; and all the historian could 
glean, in prosecuting his inquiries, as to their era and 
cause, was, that their antiquity was so remote, that 
some of them may be even seen immersed beneath the 
waters of Lough Neagh * which had been occasioned 
many ages before by the overflowing of a fountain'}'. 

Let us now turn to the annals of the " Four Mas- 
ters," which record the destruction of Armagh, a,d. 
995, by a flash of lightning, and see under what name 
they include the " Round Towers" in the general 
catastrophe. Here is the passage at full length, as 
given by O'Connor : — " Ardmaeha do lose do tene 
saighnein, ettir tighib, 7£ Domhidiacc, 7 Cloic teacha, 
7 Fiadh-Neimhedh .*" — that is, Armagh having been 
set on fire by lightning, its houses, its cathedrals, its 
belfries, and its Fiadh-Neimhedh, were all destroyed. 

The Ulster Annals have registered the same event 
in the following words : — " Tene diait do gabail Aird- 
maeha conafarcaibh Dertach, na Damliacc, na h Erdam, 
na Fidh-Nemead ami cen loscadh :" — that is, Lightning 
seized upon Armagh, to so violent a degree, as to 
leave neither mansion, nor cathedral, nor belfry, nor 
Fidh-Nemead, undemolished. 

Here we find Fiadh-Nemeadh to occur in both 
accounts, while the belfries are represented in one 
place as Cloic teacha, and in the other as Erdam, — and 
in both are opposed to, and contradistinguished from, 

* Top. Dist. ii. c. 9, p. 720. 

•I- In the reign ofTxiacba Labhruine, a.m. 3177 ; n.c. 827. 
:j; This mark (7), in the Irish language, is an abbreviation for agus, 
i.e. and. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 51 

the Fiadh-Nemeadh. Our business now is to investi- 
gate what this latter word conveys ; and though I do 
not mean, for a while, to develop its true interpretation, 
— of which I am the sole and exclusive depositary, — 
yet must I make it apparent, that by it — whatever way 
it must be rendered, — all before me have understood, 
were emphatically designated our Sabian Towers. 
Thus Colgan in his " Acts," page 297, referring to 
these words of the Four Masters, says, " Anno 995, 
Ardmaeha cum Basilicis, Turribus, aliisque omnibus 
edificiis, incendio ex fulmine generato, tota vastatur." 

O'Connor also, wishing to wrest its import to his 
favourite theory of their having been g?iomons, while 
ignorant of its proper force, indulges in a conjecture 
of the most lunatic ostentation, and translates Fiadh- 
Nemeadh by celestial indexes. 

But though the word does not literally signify 
either " Towers," — as Colgan, for want of a better 
exposition, has set forth, — or " celestial indexes," — 
as O'Connor, equally at a loss for its proper mean- 
ing, has ventured to promulgate, — yet is it indis- 
putable that it stood as the representative of those 
enigmatical edifices, as well as that both writers had 
the same structures in view as comprehended under 
the tenor of this mysterious denomination *. 

These annals I look upon, in three different lights, 
as invaluable documents : — firstly, as they prove the 
existence of those edifices at the date above assigned ; 
secondly, as they show that they were distinct things 
from the belfries — whether cloicteach or erdam — 
which shared their disaster ; and, thirdly, because 
that, even admitting of O'Connor's mistranslation, it 

* The Annals of Inisfallen, also, page 148, call them by the same 
name of Fiadh-Nemeadh. 

E 2 



52 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

gives us an insight into their character more for- 
tuitous than he had anticipated. Celestial indexes * ! 
Could any one be so silly as for a moment to suppose 
that this was a mere allusion to the circumstance of 
their height ? No ; it was no such casual epithet, 
or witty effort of hyperbole ; but it was, what Sallust 
has so truly said of the Syrtes, " nomen ex re inditum." 

The identity between this island and the " Insula 
Hyperboreorum" of Hecatseus being to be completely 
established in an ensuing chapter, — the bungling of 
natives and the claims of externs notwithstanding, — 
I shall not hesitate to assume as proved, that ours was 
the " island" described. 

Allow me then to draw vour attention to an extract 
from Diodorus's report thereof: — " They affirm also," 
says he, " that the moon is so seen from this island, 
that it appears not so distant from the earth, and seems 
to present on its disk certain projections like the moun- 
tains of our world. Likewise that the God Apollo in 
person visits this island once in nineteen years, in 
which the stars complete their revolutions, and return 
into their old positions ; and hence this cycle of nine- 
teen years is called, by the Greeks, the great year." 

Who is it that collates this description with the 
" celestial indexes'!"'" above produced, that is not, at 
once, struck with the felicity of the coincidence? 
On earth, what could celestial indexes mean but such 
as were appropriated to the contemplation of the 
heavenly bodies? — just as the name of " Zoroaster," 
— which, in the Persian language, signifies "ccelorum 
observator," that is star-gazer, or observer of the 

• Rer. Hib. Scrip. Vet. iii p. 527. 

t Fidh-Nemeadh certainly admits of this interpretation, but in a very 
different sense from what its author had supposed. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 53 

heavens, — was given to Zerdust, the great patriarch 
of the Magi, from his eminence and delight in astro- 
nomical pursuits. 

Now, " the moon being so seen from this island 
that it appears not so distant from the earth," is so 
obvious a reference to the study of astronomy that it 
would be almost an insult to go about to prove it ; 
but when it is said that " it presents on its disk cer- 
tain projections like the mountains of our world," it 
not only puts that question beyond the possibility of 
dispute, but argues furthermore a proficiency in that 
department, which it is the fashion now -a- days to 
attribute only to modern discoveries. 

But have we any evidence of having ever had 
amongst us, in those " olden times/' men who by 
their talents could support this character? Hear 
what Strabo says of AbarU, whom " Hecataeus and 
others mention'' as having been sent by his fraternity 
from the " island of the Hyperboreans" to Delos, in 
Greece, in the capacity of a sacred ambassador, where 
he was equally admired for his knowledge, polite- 
ness, justice, and integrity. " He came," says Strabo, 
" to Athens, not clad in skins like a Scythian, but with 
a bow in his hand, a quiver hanging on his shoulders, 
a plaid wrapt about his body, a gilded belt encircling 
his loins, and trowsers reaching from the waist down 
to the soles of his feet. He was easy in his address, 
agreeable in his conversation, active in his despatch, 
and secret in his management of great affairs ; quick 
in judging of present occurrences, and ready to take 
his part in any sudden emergency ; provident withal 
in guarding against futurity ; diligent in the quest of 
wisdom ; fond of friendship ; trusting very little to 
fortune, yet having the entire confidence of others, 



54 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

and trusted with everything for his prudence. He 
spake Greek with a fluency, that you would have 
thought he had been bred up in the Lyceum, and 
conversed all his life with the Academy of Athens*." 
This embassy is ascertained to have taken place 
B.C. 600; and from what shall be elsewhere said of 
the " island of the Hyperboreans," — coupled with the 
circumstance of the orator Himerius having called 
this individual a Scythian, which Strabo would seem 
to have insinuated also, — we can be at no loss in 
tracing him to his proper home. 

" Far westward lies an isle of ancient fame, 
By nature blessed, and Scotia is her name ; 
An island rich — exhaustless is her store 
Of veiny silver and of golden ore ; 
Her verdant fields with milk and honey flow, 
Her woolly fleeces vie with virgin snow, 
Her waving furrows float with verdant corn, 
And Arms and Arts her envied sons adorn." 

Such is the description of Ireland given by Do- 
natus, bishop of Etruria, in 802 ; and I have se- 
lected it among a thousand other authorities of simi- 
lar import, to show that Scotia or Scythia was one, 
and the last, of the ancient names of this country f; 

* A German writer, contemporary with the Emperor Charles the Great, 
says of another Irishman, named Clement, at a much later period, " That 
through his instructions the French might vie with the Romans and the 
Athenians. John Erigena, whose sirname denoted his countrv, (Eri or 
Erina being the proper name of Ireland,) became soon (in the ninth cen- 
tury) after famous for his learning and good parts, both in England and 
France. Thus did most of the lights, which, in those times of thick 
darkness, cast their beams over Europe, proceed out of Ireland. The 
loss of the manuscripts is much bewailed bj the Irish who treat of the 
history and antiquities of their country, and which may well lie deemed 
a misfortune, not only to them, hut to the whole learned world." 

t Isidore of Seville, in the seventh century, says, — " Scotia eadem et 
Hibernia," thai is, Scotia and Ireland are one and the same— an identity, 
however, of locality, not of signification. Ami Orosius of Tarracona 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 55 



while the name of " Hyperborean" was the distinctive 
character assigned thereto, not only as descriptive 
of its locality towards the north, but as worshipping 
the wind Boreas. 

Did I not apprehend it might be considered irrele- 
vant to the scope of this work, I could easily prove 
that the amity, said by Hecatseus to have been ce- 
mented on the occasion of the visit above alluded to, 
was not that of a mere return of courteous civilities 
for a casual intercourse, but one of a far more tender 
and familiar nature, viz., the recognition on both sides 
of their mutual descent from one common origin ; the 
same people who had settled in this country, and 
imported the mysteries of their magic priesthood, 
being akin to the first settlers on the coasts of 
Greece, which they impregnated with similar initia- 
tion. I am anticipated, of course, to have meant the 
Pelasgi, who, under another name, belonged to the 
same hive as the Indo-Scythse, or Chaldean Magi, or 
Tuath-de-danaan, — as the head tribe thereof were called 
— who, having effected an establishment on this happy 
isle, aloof from the intrusion of external invasion or 
internal butcheries, were allowed to cultivate the 
study of their favourite rites, the fame and eminence 
of which had obtained for its theatre, of all nations, 
the designation of " sacred." But I fear it would be 
encroaching upon the patience of my readers, and 

still earlier, in the fifth century, avers, that " In his own time, Ireland 
was inhabited by the nations of the Scoti." And were further evidence 
required as to the point, it would be found in the fact of one of our Chris- 
tian luminaries, whose name was Shane, i.e. John, being called by the 
Latin historians indifferently by the epithets of Johannes Scotus and 
Johannes Erigena — the former signifying John the Irishman, and the 
latter, John the Scotchman. 



"j6 the round towers. 

besides anticipating, in point of order, what may by 
and by follow. 

An inconsistency, however, appears in the details, 
which I cannot here well overlook. It is this. Hi- 
merius has called this our ambassador a " Scythian ;" 
and Strabo has affirmed, that he was " not clad like 
a Scythian." How, then, shall I cut this knot? 
Thus. Abaris, as his name implies, was one of the 
Boreades, or priests of Boreas, belonging to the 
Tuath-de-danaan colony in this island, who were sub- 
dued, about six hundred years before this event, by 
the Scythians, whose dress, as well as manners, dif- 
fered in all particulars from those of their religious 
and learned predecessors. 

But though the Scythians, from state policy, had 
suppressed the temple-worship when they deposed 
from the throne their antecedent Hyperboreans, they 
were but too sensible of their literary value not to 
profit by their services in the department of education. 
Hence it came to pass, that the Boreades were still 
indulged with their favourite costume, while the infe- 
rior communities were obliged to conform to the rules 
and the fashions of the ascendant dynasty. In a short 
time, however, the Scythian Druids superseded the 
Danaan Boreades, by the influence of their own in- 
struction ; and the consequence was, that of that 
graceful garb, in the folds of which our ancient high- 
priests officiated at the altar, or exhibited in the senate, 
not a single vestige is now to be traced, except in the 
word God, Phcaragh, whom I shall, anon, intro- 
duce, and in the highlands of Scotland, where a rem- 
nant of those Hvperborean or Danaan priests took 
shelter from the ruthless Picts, resigning to those 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 57 

remorseless and intolerant persecutors the ground of 
the only two temples which they were able there to 
raise, as the last resort of their hopes, and the solace 
of their exile*. 

Nor is it alone as accounting* for the circum- 
stance of costume that the above explanation deserves 
the reader's regard. An additional insight is afforded, 
by its enabling us to account for that boundless supe- 
riority which the Irish Druids possessed over all other 
bodies of the same denomination all over the world. 
Originally, the Druids were an humble set of men, 
without science, without letters, without pretensions 
to refinement ; but having succeeded here to the fra- 
ternity of the accomplished Danaan Boreades, who, 
in the revolution of affairs, were forced to communi- 
cate their acquirements to the opposite but prevailing 
priesthood, those latter so far profited by the ennobling 
opportunity, as to eclipse all other Druids, as well in 
Europe as in. Africa. 

Ceesar, in his Commentaries, bears direct testimony 
to their astronomical research ; saying, " Multa 
prseterea de sideribus atque eorum motu, de mundi 
ac terrarum magnitudine, de rerum natura ac deorum 
immortalium vi ac potestate disputant ac juventuti 
transdunt." — De Bel. Gal., lib. 1 — 6. c. xiv. Pom- 
ponius Mela, also confirming the fact, says, " Hi 
terras mundique magnitudinem ac formam, motus cceli 
ac siderum, ac quid Dii velint scire, profitentur." — De 
Situ Orbis, lib. 3. c. ii. These two latter authorities, 
I admit, were more immediately directed to the Druids 
of Britain ; but as it is agreed on all hands that that 

* The Scots first drove them from Ireland to what is now called Scot- 
land, and the Picts afterwards chased them from the lowlands to the 
highland fastnesses. 



58 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

body of religionists had received the seeds of their 
instruction from the Irish Magi, who were infinitely 
their superiors in all literary accomplishments, I think 
we may be warranted in extending the commendation 
to Ireland also, as the writers indubitably included it 
under the general name of Britain. 

But were all external testimonies silent on the 
matter, and mercenary vouchers even assert the reverse, 
the internal evidence of our language itself — a lan- 
guage so truly characterised as " more than three 
thousand years old," would afford to the ingenuous 
and disinterested inquirer the most convincing proof 
of the ground which I have assumed. In that lan- 
guage, — and the writer of this essay ought to know 
something of it, — there is scarcely a single term apper- 
taining to time, from la, a day, derived from liladh, 
to turn round, — in allusion to the diurnal revolution 
— up to bleain, a year, compounded of Bel, the sun, 
and Ain, a circle, — referring to its annual orbit, — 
that does not, in its formation and construction, 
associate the idea with the planetary courses, and 
thereby evince not only an astronomical taste, but 
that astronomy was the " ruling passion" of those 
who spoke it. 

" The Irish language," says Davies, an intelligent 
and respectable Welsh writer, " appears to have 
arrived at maturity amongst the Iapetidas, while they 
were yet in contact with Aramaean families, and formed 
a powerful tribe in Asia Minor and in Thrace. It 
may, therefore, in particular instances, have more 
similitude or analogy to the Asiatic dialects than what 
appears in those branches of the Celtic that were 
matured in the west of Europe. Those who used this 
language consisted partly of Titans, ot'Celto-Scvthkms, 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 59 

or of those Iapetidse who assisted in building the city 
of Babel, and must have been habituated, after the 
dispersion, to the dialects of the nations through which 
they passed, before they joined the society of their 
brethren." We thank this learned author for the 
flattering notice which he has been pleased to take of 
us ; and though, in his subsequent remarks, he steers 
far wide of our true pedigree, yet a concession so 
important as that even here adduced, must command 
at least our becoming acknowledgments. 

The splendid examples which we have had of 
primitive preachers of Christianity in this kingdom, 
and whom Ledwich himself, reluctant as he was to 
afford ordinary justice to Irish merit, is obliged to 
praise, — were not more remarkable for the sanctified 
zeal and enthusiastic devotion with which they pro- 
pagated the Gospel, than they were for the diversified 
range of their literary acquirements, and the moral 
sublimity of their ideas and conceptions*. Speaking 
of a production belonging to one of these worthies, 
Ledwich remarks ; " In this tract we can discover 
Cumman's acquaintance with the doctrine of time, 
and the chronological characters. He is no stranger 
to the solar, lunar, and bissextile years, to the epactal 
days, and embolismal months, nor to the names of 
the Hebrew, Macedonian, and Egyptian months. To 
examine the various cyclical systems, and to point out 

* Henricus Antisiodrensis, writing to Charles the Bald, says,—" Why 
need I mention all Ireland, with her crowd of philosophers ?'' " The 
philosophy and logic,'' says Mosheim, a German historian, " that were 
taught in the European schools in the ninth century, scarcely deserved 
such honourable titles, and were little better than an empty jargon. 
There were, however, to be found in various places, particularly among 
the Irish, men of acute parts and extensive knowledge, who were per- 
fectly well entitled to the appellation of philosophers."' 



GO THE ROUND TOWERS. 

their construction and errors, required no mean abili- 
ties : a large portion of Greek and Latin literature 
was also necessary *." 

Here I would have it distinctly noticed, that the 
above-mentioned individuals who shone in the galaxy 
of our early Christian constellations, had been but just 
converted from paganism by St. Patrick, and conse- 
quently were not indebted for this " learned lore " to 
the Romish missionaries, but to the more elevated 
genius of their native institutions. This it was that 
enabled them to make those astronomical observations 
which our annals commemorate ; and who can say, 
amidst the decay of time, the ravages of persecution, 
and the fury of fanaticism, what tomes of such labours 
has not the world lost ? Some few,, however, remain, 
of which we shall adduce some by way of specimen. 
Solar eclipses of 495— 664— 810— 8S4— Lunar of 
673— 717— 733— 807—877— Solar and Lunar 864— 
A comet 911 — are recorded in our annals. 

Those of the " Four Masters " additionally record 
certain extraordinary celestial phenomena in 743 : — 
" Visas sunt Stellas quasi de ccelo cadere." Again, in 
744, they observe, " Hoc anno Stellas item de ccelo 
frequentes deciderunt;" while it cannot be too dili- 
gently noted, " that, when the rest of Europe, as 
Vallancey so justly remarked, through ignorance or 
forgetfulness, had no knowledge of the true figure of 
the earth, in the eighth century, the rotundity and 
true formation of it should have been taught in the 
Irish schools," which we shall by and by more 
pointedly advert to. 

It thus appears manifest that the Irish must, at one 

' Antiq., p. 108. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 61 

time, have not only possessed, but excelled in, the 
science of astronomy. How did they acquire it? is 
the next question. " Ad ilia mihi pro se quisque 
acriter intendat animum." In that passage of Dio- 
dorus, to which I have already referred, we find the 
following appropriate characteristic. " It is affirmed 
that Latona was born there, and that, therefore, the 
worship of Apollo is preferred to that of any other 
God ; and as they daily celebrate this deity with 
songs of praise, and worship him with the highest 
honours, they are considered as peculiarly the priests 
of Apollo, whose sacred grove and singular temple 
of round form, endowed with many gifts, are there." 

Now, it is universally known that Apollo, which, 
" according to the learned Pezron, is no other than 
Ap-haul, or the son of the Sun, 1 ' was understood 
by the ancients only essentially to typify that power- 
ful planet, " which animates and imparts fecundity 
to the universe, whose divinity has been accordingly 
honoured in every quarter by temples and by altars, 
and consecrated in the religious strains of all nations" 
and all climes. 

His being peculiarly worshipped in this island only 
shows the intimate knowledge it possessed of the 
mysteries of the solar system ; and that near converse 
which we have been already told it possessed with the 
moon, is confirmation the most positive of this ex- 
planation. 

Let me here again recall to the reader's mind 
the name of Cathaoir Ghall, or temple of brightness, 
which I have before adduced, and when we compare 
all with the celestial indexes recorded in our annals, the 
conclusion is inevitable, that the Round Towers of Ire- 
land were specifically constructed for the twofold purpose 



62 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

of worshipping the Sun and Moon, — as the authors of 
generation and vegetative heat, — and, from the nearer 
converse which their elevation afforded, of studying the 
revolutions and properties of the planetary orbs. Let 
me, however, before elucidating the era of their actual 
erection, — with their Phallic form and their further 
use, — revert to the Mosaic history for the groundwork 
of my development- 

" And chiefly thou, O Spirit ! that dost prefer 
Before all temples th' upright heart and pure, 
Instruct me, for thou know'st ; thou from the first 
Wast present, and, with mighty wings outspread, 
Dove-like sat'st brooding on the vast abyss, 
And mad'st it pregnant. What in me is dark, 
Illumine ! what is low, raise and support ! 
That to the height of this great argument 
I may assert eternal Providence, 
And justify the ways of God to man *." 

* Milton. 



03 



CHAPTER V. 

Nimrod, the son of Cush, " the mighty hunter before 
the Lord," was the first person *, according to Vos- 
sius "j", who introduced the worship of the sun as a 
deity. Disgusted with the roving character of his 
previous life, and tired of peregrination, he resolves 
to build himself a permanent abode, and persuades 
his followers to embark in the design, " lest they 
be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole 
earth £." Mankind had already relapsed into the 
follies of their antediluvian ancestors. The awful 
lesson of the watery visitation was read to them 
in vain, and again they verified what God had before 
that memorable epoch with sorrow declared, {i that 
every imagination of the thoughts of their hearts was 
only evil continually §." 

In Babel, the city thus agreed upon to be built — as 
the anchor of their stability and the basis of their 
renown, — we find a " Tower " mentioned, " whose 
top may reach," — says our version, (but should it not 
rather be — point f) — towards Heaven. 

What was the object of this architectural elevation? 



* I will show, however, that it was much older. 

t De Orig. et Progress. Idolat., ii. 61. 
\ Genesis xi. 4. § Genesis vi. 5. 



64 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Not certainly, as some have supposed, as a place of 
refuge in apprehension of a second deluge ; for in 
that case, it is probable, they would have built it 
on an eminence, rather than on a plain, whereas the 
bible expressly tells us they had selected the latter. 

Much less could it be, what the poets have ima- 
gined, for the purpose of scaling the celestial abodes, 
and disputing with Jehovah the composure of his 
sovereignty. 

What, then, was it intended for? 

Undoubtedly as an acknowledgment, however viti- 
ated and depraved, of dependence upon that Being, 
whose acts shine forth in universal love, but whose 
spiritual adoration was now partially lost sight of, or 
merged in the homage thus primarily tendered to the 
lucid offspring of his omnipotent fiat. 

This Tower, so erected by Nimrod, in opposition 
to the established system of religious belief, and 
which, therefore, — but from a nobler reason than what 
was generally imagined, viz., his researches in astro- 
nomy, and the application thereto of instruments — 
procured him the appellation of rebel, from nemh, 
heaven, and rodh, an assault — was, I hesitate not to 
say, a temple constructed to the celestial host, the 
sun, moon, and stars, which constituted the substance 
of the Sabian idolatry *. 



* On the top was an observatory, by the benefit of which it was that 
the Babylonians advanced their skill in astronomy so early ; when 
Alexander took Babylon, Callisthenes the philosopher, who accompanied 
him there, found they had observations for 1903 years backward from 
that time, which carries up the account as high as the hundred and 
fifteenth year after the flood, i. e., within fifteen years after the tower of 
Babel was built. 






THE ROUXD TOWERS. 05 

Shinaar, in Mesopotamia, was the theatre of this 
dread occurrence — this appalling- spectacle at once of 
man's weakness and God's omnipotence : — Here the 
Noachidse had been then fixed ; and the name by 
which this innovation upon their previous usages is 
transmitted, viz., BaBel, corroborates the destination 
above assigned*. 

The word " Baal," in itself an appellative, at first 
served to denote the true God amongst those who 
adhered to the pure religion ; though, when it became 
common amongst the idolatrous nations, and applied 
to idols, He rejected it. " And it shall be in that day 
that you shall call me Ishi, and shall call me no more 
Baali -j\" Another name by which the Godhead was 
recognized was Moloch. The latter, indeed, in accu- 
racy of speech was the name assigned him by the 
Ammonites and Moabites — both terms, however, cor- 
responded in sense, " Moloch" signifying king, and 
" Baal" Lord, that is, of the heavens ; whence trans- 
ferring the appellation to the Sun, as the source and 
dispenser of all earthly favours, he was also called 
Bolati, i. e., " Baal the bestower," as was the moon, 
Baaltis, from the same consideration : whilst the direct 
object of their internal regard was not, undoubtedly, 

* I stop not to inquire whether or not this may have been the same 
with that which stood in the midst of the temple of Belus, afterwards 
built around it by Nebuchadnezzar. The intent I conceive similar in 
all, whether the scriptural Tower, Birs Nimrod, or Mujellibah; and the 
rather, as Captain Mignan tells us of the last, that on its summit there 
are still considerable traces of erect building, and that at the western 
end is a circular mass of solid brick-work sloping towards the top, and 
rising from a confused heap of rubbish; while Niebuhr states that Birs 
Nimrod is also surmounted by a turret. My object is to show that the 
same emblematic design mingled in all those ancient edifices, though 
not identical in its details. 

t Hosea, ch. ii. v. 16. 

F 



60 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

that globe of fire which illumines the firmament and 
vivifies terrestrials, but, physically considered, nature at 
large, the fructifying germ of universal generativeness. 
The Sun, it is true, as the source of light and heat, 
came in as representative for all this adoration, Thus 
viewed, then, it would appear that the origin of the 
institution may have been comparatively harmless. 
God being invisible, or only appearing to mortals 
through the medium of his acts, it was natural that 
man, left to the workings of unaided reason, should 
look on yon mysterious luminary with mingled senti- 
ments of gratitude and awe. We have every reason, 
accordingly, to think, that solar worship at first was 
only emblematical, recognizing, in the effulgence of the 
orb of day, the creative power of Him, the 

*' Father of all, in every age, 
In every clime adored, 
By saint, by savage, and by sage, 
Jehovah, Jove, or Lord'' — 

who sent it forth on its beneficent errand. 

As such, originally they had no temples dedicated 
to the occasion ; they met in the open air, without the 
precincts of any earthly shrine : there they poured forth 
their vows and their thanksgivings, under the aerial 
canopy of the vaulted expanse ; nor can it be denied 
but that there was something irresistibly impressive in 
such an assemblage of pious votaries, paying their 
adoration to the throne of light in the natural temple 
of his daily splendours *. 

The degeneracy of man, however, became manifest 
in the sequel, and, from the frequency of the act, the 

* St. Stephen, the first martyr who suffered death for Christ, said 
before the Jewish Sanhedrim, " God dwelleth not in temples made with 
hands." Acts \ii. 48. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 67 

type was substituted in room of the thing typified. 
" Solum in coelis deum putabant solem, 1 ' says Philo- 
bibliensis, in his interpretation of Sanchoniathon. 
Nor did it stop here, but, proceeding in its progress 
of melancholy decay, swept before it the barriers of 
reason and moral light ; and, from the bright monarch 
of the stars, who rules the day, the seasons, and the 
year, with perpetual change, yet uniform and iden- 
tical, bowed before the grosser element of material 
fire, as his symbol or corporeal representative. 

But the worst and most lamentable is yet untold. 
The sign again occupied the place of the thing signi- 
fied, and the human soul was prostrated, and human 
life often immolated, to propitiate the favour of earthly 
fire, now by transition esteemed a god. They had, it 
is true, from a faint knowledge of the sacred writings, 
and a perverted exercise of that inspired authority, 
something like an excuse for, at least, a decent at- 
tention in the ordinary management of that useful 
article. In Levit. vi. 13, it is said, " the fire upon 
the altar shall ever be burning, it shall never go out." 
This injunction given by the Lord to Moses, to re- 
mind his people of the constant necessity of sacrifice 
and prayer, the Gentiles misconstrued into reverence 
for the fire itself, and u quoniam omnes pravi dociles 
sumus," hence the ready admission with which the 
doctrine was embraced, and the general spread of that 
which was at first but partial and figurative. 

Indeed we find that God himself had appeared to 
Moses in a " flame of fire in the midst of a bush," 
Exod. iii. 2, and in presence of the whole Israel- 
itish host. Exod. xix. 18. " The Lord descended 
upon Mount Sinai, as the smoke of a furnace ;" while 
in Exod. xiii. 21, it is declared that " the Lord went 

f 2 



68 THE HOUND TOWERS. 

before tliem by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by 
night in a pillar of fire, to give them light." So ac- 
cordingly we find Elijah, 1 Kings xviii. 24, when 
challenging the priests of the false divinities, propose 
a decision by fiery ordeal. " Call you on the name 
of your gods," he says, " and I will call upon the 
name of the Lord, and the God that ansvvereth by fire, 
let him be God, and all the people answered, it is well 
spoken." 

The infidels, therefore, who could not concede any 
superiority to the religion of the Hebrews, and yet 
could not deny those manifestations of divine support, 
thought they best proved their independence by insti- 
tuting a rivalship, and got thereby the more confirmed 
in their original idolatry. Their bloody sacrifices 
themselves originated, we may suppose, in some simi- 
lar way. God must, undoubtedly, have prescribed 
that rite to Adam, after his fall in Paradise, else how 
account for the " skins" with which Eve and he had 
covered themselves? The beasts to which they be- 
longed could not have been slain for food ; for it was 
not till a long time after that they were allowed to eat 
the flesh of animals. We may, therefore, safely infer 
that it was for a sin-offering they had been immo- 
lated ; and the subsequent reproof given to Cain by 
the rejection of his oblation, evidently for the non- 
observance of the exact mode of sacrifice prescribed, 
coupled with the command issued to Abraham, to try 
his obedience, by offering up his own son, are unde- 
niable proofs of the truth of this inference. 

In rt Ur" of the Chaldees, a name which literally 
signifies " fire," the worship of that element first 
originated. Thence it. travelled in its contaminating 
course, until all the regions of the earth got impreg- 



THE HOUND TOWERS. 69 

nated therewith. In Persia, a country with which 
this island had, of old, the most direct communication, 
we also find a city denominated " Ur ;" and who does 
not know that the Persians, having borrowed the 
custom from the Chaldean priests, regarded fire with 
the utmost veneration? Numerous as were the 
deities which that nation worshipped, " fire," on every 
occasion, in every sacrifice — like the Janus of the 
Romans — was invoked the first. Their Pyrea, in 
which they not only preserved it ever burning, but 
worshipped it as a deity, have been noticed by Bris- 
son — but without the necessary adjunct of their being 
an innovation. 

Even the ordinary fire for culinary or social pur- 
poses participated in some measure in this hallowed 
regard ; as they durst not, without violating the most 
sacred rules, and stifling the scruples of all their 
previous education, offer it the least mark of impious 
disregard, or pollute its sanctity by profane con- 
tact. 

It was, however, only as symbolical of the sun, that 
they, like the Chaldeans, paid it this extraordinary 
reverence — a reverence not limited to mere religious 
rules, but which exercised control over, and biassed 
the decisions of, their most important secular trans- 
actions. Accordingly we learn from Herodotus, lib. 
vii., as quoted by Cicero in Verrem, that when Datis, 
the prefect of Xerxes' fleet, flushed with the result of 
his victory over Naxos, and the city of Eretria, in 
Eubcea. might easily have made himself master of the 
island of Delos, he, however, passed it over un- 
touched, in honour of that divinity before whom bis 
country had bowed, having been sacred to Apollo, or 
the sun, and reputedly his birth-place. 



70 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Hut do I mean to say that the " Round Towers " of 
Ireland were intended for the preservation of the 
sacred fire ? Far, very far, indeed, from it. That some 
few of them were therewith connected — I say con- 
nected, not appropriated — may, I think, be well al- 
lowed ; nay, it is my candid belief, so far as belief is 
compatible With a matter so unauthenticated. But 
having all through maintained that they were not all 
intended for one and the same object, I must have 
been understood, of course, by the numerous sup- 
porters of that fashionable proposition, as including 
fire-worship within the compass of my several views. 
I put it, however, frankly, to the most ardent sup- 
porter of that theory, who for a moment considers the 
different bearings and peculiarities of those several 
structures, comparing them first with one another, and 
then with the description of fire-receptacles which we 
read of elsewhere, whether he can dispassionately 
bring himself to say that all our Round Towers, or 
indeed above two of those at present remaining, could 
have been even calculated for that purpose ? 

Where, let me ask, is it they will suppose the fire 
to have been placed ? In the bottom ? No ; the in- 
tervening floors, of which the greater portion re- 
tain evident traces, would not only endanger the 
conflagration of the whole edifice, as it is most pro- 
bable that they were made of wood, but would also 
prevent the egress of the smoke through the four 
windows at the top, for which use, they tell you, those 
apertures were inserted. 

But 1 am answered that the tower of Ardmore, 
which lias within il no vestiges of divisional com- 
partments, could offer no hinderance to the ascent of 
the smoke, or its consequent discharge through the 



[To face page 71. 




AKDMUKK. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 71 

four cardinal openings. To which I rejoin, that if 
there had ever been a fire lighted within that edifice, 
and continued for any length of time, as the sacred 
fire is known to have been kept perpetually burning, 
it would have been impossible for the inner surface 
of that stately structure to preserve the beautiful and 
white coating which it still displays, through the 
mystic revolutions of so many ages. The same con- 
clusion applies to the tower of Devenish, which, 
though it has no inside coating, yet must its elegant 
polish have been certainly deteriorated, if subjected 
to the action of a perpetual smoke. 

The instance which is adduced of the four temples 
described by Hanway, in his " Travels into Persia," 
proves nothing. It certainly corresponds with the 
architectural character of some of our Round Towers, 
but leaves us as much in the dark as to the era and 
use of both, as if he had never made mention of any 
such occurrence. 

To me it is as obvious as the noon-day sun that 
they too, on examination, would be found of a more 
comprehensive religious tendency than what could 
possibly relate to the preservation of the sacred fire : 
for it is well known that when temples were at all 
appropriated to this consecrated delusion, it was 
within a small crypt or arched vault — over which the 
temple was erected — that it was retained. The 
Ghebres or Parsees, the direct disciples of Zoroaster, 
the reputed author of this improved institution, 
" build their temples," says Richardson*, " over sub- 
terraneous fires" 

Whenever a deviation from this occurred, it was in 
favour of a low stone-built structure, all over-arched, 

* Asiatic Researches. 



72 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

such as that which Hanway met with at Baku, and 
corresponding in every particular with the edifices of 
this description to be seen at Smerwick, county 
Kerry, and elsewhere throughout Ireland *. 

The fire-bouse which Captain Keppel visited at a 
later period at Baku, in 1824, was a small square 
building, erected on a platform, with three ascending 
steps on each side, having a tall hollow stone column 
at every side, through which the flame was seen to 
issue, all in the middle of a pentagonal enclosure — com- 
prising also a large altar, whereon naphtha was kept 
continually burning. 

Now could anything possibly correspond more mi- 
nutely with Strabo's description of the Pyratheia, 
than does this last account ? " They are," he says, 
" immense enclosures, in the centre of which was 
erected an altar, where the Magi used to preserve, as 
well a quantity of ashes, as the ever-burning fire it- 
self." And could anything possibly be more opposite 
to our " Round Towers " than all these accounts? 

When, therefore, we are told f that at the city of 
Zezd, in Persia — which is distinguished by the ap- 
pellation of Darub Abadat, or seat of religion — the 
Ghebres are permitted to have an Atush Kidi, or fire- 
temple, which they assert had the sacred fire in it 
since the days of Zoroaster, we must be prepared to 
understand it as corresponding in architectural pro- 
portion with one or other of the instances just now 

* It is most unaccountable how Hanway, after seeing this evidence of 
an actual fire-temple, should, notwithstanding, commit the egregious 
blunder of calling the Round Towers — which differed from it as much 
as a maypole does from a rabbit-hole — lire-temples also. Vet has he 
been most religiously followed by Yallaneey, Beauford, Dalton. &c., who 
could not open their eyes to the mistake. 

t Pottinffer's Bcloehistan. 



THE ROUXD TOWERS. 73 

detailed ; and in truth, from recent discovery, I have 
ascertained— since the above was composed — that it 
is nothing more than a sorry hut. 

But Pennant's view of Hindostan is brought for- 
ward as at once decisive of the matter. What says 
Mr. Pennant, however ? " All the people of this 
part of India are Hindoos, and retain the old religion, 
with all its superstition; this makes the Pagodas 
here much more numerous than in any other part of 
the peninsula ; their form- too is different, being 
chiefly buildings of a cylindrical or round tower shape, 
with their tops either pointed or truncated at the top, 
and ornamented with something eccentrical, but fre- 
quently with a round ball stuck on a spike : this ball 
seems intended to represent the sun, an emblem of the 
deity of the place." 

To this ascription of this learned traveller I most 
fully, most heartily respond. Pagoda is a name in- 
vented by the Portuguese, from the Persian " Peut- 
gheda," meaning a temple of idols, in which they 
supposed them to abound, but which in reality were 
only so many figures or symbols of the " principle of 
truth," the " spirit of wisdom," the " supreme es- 
sence," and other attributes of the Godhead, which, I 
believe, they in a great measure spiritually recog- 
nized. Those structures, therefore, as the very word 
implies, had no manner of relation to the sacred fire, 
but they had to the sun and moon, the supposed 
authors of generation and nutrition, of which fire 
was only the corrupt emblem, and the different 
forms of their constructural terminations, similar to 
those elsewhere described by Maundrell, some being 
pointed, and some being truncated, harmonizes most 
aptly with the radial and hemispherical representa- 



74 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

tions of the two celestial luminaries, as well as with 
that organ of human procreation which we shall here- 
after more particularly identify. These are the two 
Baals dwelt so largely upon in the Scriptures — Baal 
masculine, the sun, and Baal feminine, the moon, 
from both of which the Hindoos derive their fabulous 
origin. Indeed it was from their extreme veneration 
for the " queen of night " that they obtained their 
very name ; Hindoo meaning, in the Sanscrit lan- 
guage, the moon ; and accordingly we find among 
them Hindoo-Buns, that is, children of the moon, as 
we do Surage-buns, children of the sun, the other 
parent of their fanciful extraction. 

Here then, methinks, we have at once a clue to 
the character of those Round Towers so frequent 
throughout the East, of whose history, however, the 
Orientals are as ignorant as we are here of our 
" rotundities." Caucasus abounds in those columnar 
fanes, and it must not be forgotten that Caucasus has 
been claimed as the residence of our ancestors. On 
Teric banks, hard by, there is a very beautiful and 
lofty one as like as possible to some of ours. The 
door is described as twelve feet from the ground, level 
and rather oblong in its form. Lord Valentia was 
so struck with the extraordinary similitude observable 
between some very elegant ones which he noticed in 
Hindostan and those in this country, that he could 
not avoid at once making the comparison. The in- 
habitants, he observes, paid no sort of regard to those 
venerable remains, but pilgrims from afar, and chief! y 
from Jynagaur, adhering to their old religion, used an- 
nually to resort to them as the shrines of their ancient 
worship. Yet in the ceremonies there performed we 
see no evidence of their appropriation to the sacred 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 75 

tire — however tradition may have ascribed them as 
once belonging to the Ghebres ! Franklin mentions 
some he has seen at Nandukan, as do other writers in 
other sites. In short, all through the East they are 
to be met with, and yet all about them is obscurity, 
doubt, and mystery, a proof at once of the antiquity 
of their date, and of their not being receptacles for 
fire, which, if the fact, could be there no secret. 

Yes, I verily believe, and I will as substantially 
establish, that they were, what has already been 
affirmed, in reference to those in Ireland, viz., — 
temples in honour of the sun and moon, the pro- 
creative causes of general fecundity, — comprising in 
certain instances, like them, also the additional and 
blended purposes of funeral cemeteries and astro- 
nomical observatories. The Septuagint interpreters 
well understood their nature when rendering the 
"high place of Baal*" by the Greek o-t^Xtj tod 
0aaA, or Pillar of Baal, that is, the pillar conse- 
crated to the sun ; while the ancient Irish themselves, 
following in the same train, designated those struc- 
tures Bail-toir, that is, the tower of Baal, or the sun, 
and the priest who attended them, Aoi Bail-toir, or 
superintendent of Baal's tower. Neither am I with- 
out apprehension but that the name " Ardmore," 
which signifies " the great high place," and where a 
splendid specimen of those Sabian edifices is still 
remaining, was in direct reference to that religious 
column ; but this " en passant." 

In the sepulchral opinion I am not a little fortified 
by the circumstance of there being found at Benares 
pyramids corresponding in all respects, save that of 
size, to those in Egypt, having also subterranean 

* Numbers, chap, xxii., ver. 41. 



76 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

passages beneath them, which are said to extend even 
for miles together. A column also, besides a sphinx's 
head, which has been discovered not long since in 
digging amid the ruins of an ancient and unknown 
city, on the banks of the Hypanis, bearing an inscrip- 
tion which was found to differ on being compared 
with Arabic, Persia, Turkish, Chinese, Tartar, Greek, 
and Roman letters ; but bore " a manifest and close 
similarity with the characters observed by Denon on 
several of the mummies of Egypt," gives strength to 
the idea of the identity of the Egyptian religion with 
that of the Indians, as it does to the identity of desti- 
nation of their respective pyramids. 



77 



CHAPTER VI. 

Now if there be any one point of Irish antiquity 
which our historians insist upon more than another, 
it is that of our ancestral connexion with the Egyptian 
kings. In all their legends Egypt is mixed up — in 
all their romances Egypt stands prominent, which 
certainly could not have been so universal without 
something at least like foundation, and must, therefore, 
remove anything like surprise at the affinity our 
ancient religion bore, in many respects, to theirs, since 
they were both derived from the same common origin. 

I have already intimated my decided belief of the 
application of the Egyptian pyramids to the com- 
bined purposes of religion and science. The depart- 
ment of science to which I particularly referred was 
astronomy, the cultivation of which was inseparably 
involved in all their religious rites ; for despite of the 
reverence which the Egyptians semed to pay to cro- 
codiles, bulls, and others of the brute creation, in 
those they only figured forth the several attributes, 
all infinite, in the divinity ; as their worship, like that 
of the ancient Irish, was purely planetary, or Sabian. 

The Indians too have images of the elephant, horse, 
and other such animals, chiselled out with the most 
studious care, and to all intents and purposes appear 
to pay them homage; but if questioned on the sub- 
ject, they will tell you that in the sagacity of the 



78 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

former, and the strength and swiftness of the latter, 
they only recognise the superior wisdom and might 
of the All-good and All-great One, and the rapidity 
with which his decrees are executed by his mes- 
sengers. 

If questioned more closely, they will tell you that 
the Brahmin is but reminded by the image of the 
inscrutable Original, whose pavilion is clouds and 
darkness ; to him he offers the secret prayer of the 
heart; and if he neglects from inadvertence the ex- 
ternal services required, it is because his mind is so 
fully occupied with the contemplation of uncreated 
excellence, that he overlooks the grosser object by 
which his impressions were communicated. Then 
with respect to their subterranean temples or Mi- 
thratic caves, of which we have so many specimens 
throughout this island, they affirm that the mysterious 
temple of the caverns is dedicated to services which 
soar as much above the worship of the plain and un- 
instructed Hindoo, as Brahma the invisible Creator 
is above the good and evil genii who inhabit the 
region of the sky. The world, whose ideas are base 
and grovelling as the dust upon which they tread, 
must be led by objects perceptible to the senses to 
perform the ceremonial of their worship ; the chosen 
offspring of Brahma are destined to nobler and sub- 
limer hopes ; their views are bounded alone by the 
ages of eternity. 

These specimens, though brief, Avill prove that the 
spirit of the religion of ancient India and Egypt was 
not that farrago of mental prostration which some 
have imagined. No, the stars, as the abode or imme- 
diate signal of the Deity, were their primary study, 
and even to this day, depressed and humiliated as the 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 79 

Indians are, and aliens in their own country, they are 
not without some attention to their favourite pursuit, 
or something' like an observatory to perpetuate its 
cultivation. In May, 1777, a letter from Sir Robert 
Baker to the President of the Royal Society of Lon- 
don, was read before that body, which details a 
complete astronomical apparatus found at Benares, 
belonging to the Brahmins. 

Such is the remnant of that once enlightened 
nation, the favourite retreat of civilization and the 
arts, which sent forth its professors into the most 
distant quarters of the world, and disseminated know- 
ledge wherever they had arrived. " With the first 
accounts we have of Hindostan,''' says Crawford, " a 
mighty empire opens to our view, which in extent, 
riches, and the number of its inhabitants, has not yet 
been equalled by any one nation on the globe. We 
find salutary laws and an ingenious and refined 
system of religion established ; sciences and arts 
known and practised ; and all of these evidently 
brought to perfection by the accumulated experience 
of many preceding ages. We see a country abound- 
ing in fair and opulent cities ; magnificent temples 
and palaces ; useful and ingenious artists employing 
the precious stones and metals in curious workman- 
ship ; manufacturers fabricating cloths, which in the 
fineness of their texture, and the beauty and duration 
of some of their dyes, have even yet been but barely 
imitated by other nations." 

" The traveller was enabled to journey through 
this immense country with ease and safety ; the 
public roads were shaded with trees to defend him 
from its scorching sun ; at convenient distances build- 
ings were erected for him to repose in, a friendly 



80 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Brahmin attended to supply his wants ; and hospitality 
and the laws held out assistance and protection to all 
alike, without prejudice or partiality We after- 
wards see the empire overrun by a fierce race of men, 
who in the beginning of their furious conquests en- 
deavoured, with their country, to subdue the minds of 
the Hindoos. They massacred the people, tortured 
the priests, threw down many of the temples, and, 
what was still more afflicting, converted some of them 
into places of worship for their prophet, till at length, 
tired with the exertion of cruelties which they found 
to be without effect, and guided by their interest, 
which led them to wish for tranquillity, they were 
constrained to let a religion and customs subsist which 
they found it impossible to destroy. But during 
these scenes of devastation and bloodshed, the sci- 
ences, being in the sole possession of the priests, who 
had more pressing cares to attend to, were neglected, 
and are now almost forgotten." 

I have dwelt thus long upon the article of India, 
from my persuasion of the intimate connexion that 
existed at one time as to religion, language, customs, 
and mode of life between some of its inhabitants and 
those of this western island. I have had an additional 
motive, and that was to show that the same cause 
which effected the mystification that overhangs our 
antiquities, has operated similarly with respect to 
theirs, and this brings me back to the subject of the 
" Round Towers," in the history, or rather the mys- 
tery, of which, in both countries, this result is most 
exemplified. 

As to their appropriation, then, to the sacral rire, 
though I do not deny that some of them may have 
been connected with it, yet unquestionably too much 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 81 

importance has been attached to the vitrified appear- 
ance of Drumboe tower as if necessarily enforcing 
our acquiescence in the universality of that doctrine. 
" At some former time," says the surveyor, " very 
strong fires have been burned within this building, and 
the inside surface towards the bottom has the appear- 
ance of vitrification." 

I do not at all dispute the accident — but while the 
vitrified aspect which this tower exhibits is proof 
irresistible that no fire ever entered those in which no 
such vitrification appears, I cannot but here too ex- 
press more than a surmise that it was not the " sacred 
fire," which, when religiously preserved, was not al- 
lowed to break forth in those volcanos insinuated; 
but in a lambent, gentle fiame, emblematic of that 
emanation of the spirit of the Divinity infused, as 
light from light, into the soul of man. 

Hail, holy Light! offspring of heaven first-born ! 

Or of th' Eternal co-eternal beam ! 

May I express thee unblamed ? Since God is light, 

And never but in unapproached light 

Dwelt from eternity ; dwelt then in thee, 

Bright effluence of bright essence increate ! 

Or hear'st thou rather, pure ethereal stream, 

Whose fountain who shall tell ? Before the sun, 

Before the heavens, thou wert, and at the voice 

Of God, as with a mantle, didst invest 

The rising world of waters dark and deep, 

Won from the void and formless infinite *. 

But to prove that they were not appropriated to 
the ritual of fire-worship, nay, that their history and 
occupation had been altogether forgotten when that 
ritual now prevailed, I turn to the glossary of Cor- 
mac, first bishop of Cashel, who after his conversion 

* Milton. 

G 



82 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

to Christianity, in the fifth century, by St. Patrick, 
thus declares his faith : — 

" Adhram do righ na duile 
Do dagh bhar din ar n' daone 
Leis gach dream, leis gach dine 
Leis gach ceall, leis gach caoimhe." 

That is, 

" I worship the King of the Elements, 
Whose fire from the mountain top ascends, 
In whose hands are all mankind, 
All punishment and remuneration. '' 

No allusion here to " towers" as connected with 
that fire so pointedly adverted to. And lest there 
should be any doubt as to the identity of this fire 
with the religious element so frequently referred to, 
we find the same high authority thus critically ex- 
plain himself in another place : " dha teinne soin- 
mech do gintis na draoithe con tincet laib moraib 
foraib, agus do bordis, na ceatra or teamandaib cacha 
bliadhna;" — that is, the Druids used to kindle two im- 
mense fires, with great incantation, and towards them 
used to drive the cattle, which they forced to pass 
between them every year. 

Nay, when St. Bridget, who was originally a pagan 
vestal, and consequently well versed in all the solem- 
nities of the sacred fire, wished, upon her conversion 
to Christianity, a.d. 467, to retain this favourite 
usage, now sublimated in its nature, and streaming in 
a more hallowed current, it was not in a " tower " 
that we find she preserved it, but in a cell or low 
building " like a vault," " which," says Holinshed, 
whose curiosity, excited by Cambrensis's report*, had 
induced him to go and visit the spot, " to this day 
they call the fire-house." It was a stone-roofed edi- 

* Top. Dist. ii. c. 34. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 83 

fice about twenty feet square, the ruins of which are 
still visible, and recognized by all around as once the 
preservative of the sacred element. When Cam- 
brensis made mention of this miraculous fire of St. 
Bridget, why did he not connect it with the Round 
Towers, which he mentions elsewhere ? He knew 
they had no connexion, and should not be associated. 
But, forsooth, the Venerable Bede has distinctly 
mentioned in the Life of St. Cuthbert, that there were 
numerous fire receptacles, remnants of ancient pagan- 
isnr, still remaining in this island ! — Admitted. But 
does it necessarily follow that they were the Round 
Towers*? No: here is the enigma solved — -they 
were those low stone-roofed structures, similar to what 
the Persians call the " Atash-gah," to be met with so 
commonly throughout all parts of this country, such 
as at Ardmore, Killaloe, Down, Kerry, Kells, &c. &c. 
The circumstance of St. Columbe having for a time 
taken up his abode in this last-mentioned one, gave 
rise to the idea that he must have been its founder : 
but the delusion is dispelled by comparing its archi- 
tecture with that of the churches which this distin- 
guished champion of the early Christian Irish church 
had erected in Iona f , whose ruins are still to be seen, 
and bear no sort of analogy with those ancient re- 
ceptacles. Struck, no doubt, with some apprehensions 
like the foregoing, it is manifest that Miss Beaufort 

* Had Bede even asserted that the Round Towers were fire receptacles, 
it would not obtain my assent, as they were as great an enigma in that 
venerable writer's day, as they have been ever since, until now that their 
secret is about to be unveiled. 

t The derivation of this word not being generally known, I may be 
allowed to subjoin it. It is the Irish for dove, as columba is the Latin, 
and was assigned to the above place in honour of St. Columbe, who was 
surnamed Kille, from the many churches which he had founded. 

G 2 



84 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

herself, while combating most strenuously for the 
Round Towers as fire receptacles, had no small mis- 
giving-, nay, was evidently divided as to the security 
of her position. " From the foregoing statements," 
she observes, i( a well-grounded conclusion may be 
drawn that these low fabrics are seldom found but in 
connexion with the towers, and were designed for the 
preservation of the sacred fire ; in some cases the lofty 
tower may have served for both purposes*." The 
lofty tower, I emphatically say, was a distinct edifice. 
Again when St. Patrick, in person, went round the 
different provinces to attend the pagan solemnities 
at the respective periods of their celebration, we find 
no mention made of any such thing as a " tower" 
occupying any part in the ritual of their religious 
exercises. When he first presented himself near the 
court of Laogaire, not far from the hill of Tara, on 
the eve of the vernal equinox, and lit up a fire before 
his tent in defiance of the legal prohibition, the appeal 
which we are told his druids addressed to the monarch 
on that occasion was couched in the following words : 
" This fire which has to-night been kindled in our 
presence, before the flame was lit up in your palace, 
unless extinguished this very night, shall never be 
extinguished at all, but shall triumph over all the 
fires of our ancient rites, and the lighter of it shall 
scatter your kingdom." In this notification, as I 
translate it from O'Connor's Prolegomena, i. c. 35, 
there occur two terms to which I would fain bespeak 
the reader's regard ; one is the word kindled, which 
implies the lighting up of a fire where there was none 
before ; the second is the word palace, which is more 
applicable to a kingly residence or private abode, 

* Trans. Row Ir. Acad, vol, xv. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 8o 

than to a columnar structure, which would seem to 
demand a characteristic denomination. 

Another objection more imposing in its character, 
and to the local antiquary offering no small difficulty 
to surmount, is that those above-mentioned low struc- 
tures must have been erected by our first Roman 
missionaries, because that they bear the strongest 
possible affinity to the finish and perfection of the 
early Roman cloacae or vaults. This difficulty, how- 
ever, I thus remove : no one in this enlightened age 
can suppose that those stupendous specimens of 
massive and costly workmanship, which we read of 
as being constructed by the Romans in the very in- 
fancy of their state, could have been the erection 
of a rude people, unacquainted with the arts. The 
story of the wolf, the vestal, and the shepherd is no 
longer credited ; Rome was a flourishing and thriving 
city long before the son of Rhea was born, and the 
only credit that he deserves, as connected with its 
history, is that of uniting together under one common 
yoke the several neighbouring communities, many of 
whom, particularly the Etrurians, were advanced in 
scientific and social civilization, conversant not only 
with the researches of letters, and the arcana of 
astronomy, but particularly masters of all manual 
trades, and with none more profoundly than that of 
architecture. 

But who, let me ask, were those Etrurians ? none 
others, most undoubtedly, than the Pelasgi orTyrseni, 
another branch of our Tuath-de-danaan ancestors^ 
who, as Myrsilus informs us, had erected the ancient 
wall around the acropolis of Athens, which is there- 
fore styled, by Callimachus, as quoted in the Scholia 
to the " Birds" of Aristophanes, " the Pelasgic Wall 



86 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

of the Tyrseni." It is now a point well ascertained 
by historians that what are termed by ancient writers 
Cyclopean walls — as if intimating the work of a race of 
giants, while the true exposition of the name is to be 
found in the fact of their having been constructed by 
a caste of miners, otherwise called arimaspi, whose 
lamp, which perhaps they had fastened to their fore- 
heads, may be considered as their only eye — were 
actually the creation of those ancient Pelasgi, and, as 
will shortly appear, should properly be called Irish *. 
Mycenae, Argos, and Tiryns, in Greece, as well as 
Etruria and other places in Italy, the early residences 
of this lettered tribe, abound in relics of this ancient 
masonry. In all respects, in all points, and in all 
particulars it corresponds with that of those above 
mentioned low, stone-roofed, fire-receptacles, so com- 
mon in this island ; which must satisfactorily and for 
ever do away with the doubt as to why such features 
of similarity should be observed to exist between 
our antiquities and those of ancient Greece and Rome; 
not less perceptible in the circumstance of those edi- 
ficial remains than in the collateral evidences of lan- 
guage and manners. 

The sacred fire, once observed with such religious 
awe by every class, and in every quarter of this 
island, was imported from Greece into Italy by the 
same people who had introduced it here. Let me not 
be supposed to insinuate that the people of the latter 
country, modernly considered, adopted the usage from 
those of the former country, moderns also ; no, there 
was no intercourse between these parties for many 
years after the foundation of the western capital. 

1 This adjective is not. here applied to our western li in, i.e., Ireland, 
Imt to the eastern Iran, i.e., Persia. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 87 

Indeed it was not until the time of Pyrrhus that they 
knew anything of their respective existences, whereas 
we find that the vestal fire was instituted by Numa, 
a. u. c. 41. What I meant therefore to say was, that 
the same early people, viz., the Pelasgi, who had 
introduced it into Greece, had, upon their expulsion 
from Thessaly by the Hellenes, betaken themselves to 
Latium, afterwards so called, and there disseminated 
their doctrines not less prosperously than their do- 
minion. 

Numa was in his day profoundly skilled in all the 
mysteries of those religious philosophers ; and his 
proffered elevation to the Roman throne was but the 
merited recompense of his venerable character. His 
whole reign was accordingly one continued scene of 
devotion and piety, in which pre-eminently outshone 
his regard to Vesta*, in whose sanctuary was pre- 
served the Palladium, " the fated pledge of Roman 
authority," and which too, by the way, ever connected 
as we see it was with the worship of fire, would seem 
to make the belief respecting it also to be of Oriental 
origin. This eastern extraction additionally accounts 
for that dexterous state contrivance of client and patron 
established in the early ages of the Roman govern- 
ment, corresponding to our ancient clanship — both 
evidently borrowed from the same Indian castes. 

I now address myself to another obstacle which has 
been advanced by an Irish lady, and of the most de- 
served antiquarian repute, whose classic and elaborate 
treatise on this identical subject, though somewhat 
differently moulded, has already won her the applause 
of that society whose discriminating verdict I now 

* Virginesque Vestse legit, Alba oriundum sacevdotium, et genti con- 
ditoris haud alienum. Livy, lib. i. cap. xx. 



88 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

respectfully await. But as my object is truth, di- 
vested as much as possible of worldly considerations, 
and unshackled by systems or literary codes, I con- 
ceive that object will be more effectually attained by 
setting inquiry on foot, than by tamely acquiescing 
in dubious asseverations or abiding by verbal am- 
biguities. 

What elicited this sentiment was Miss Beaufort's 
remark on the enactment at Tara, a.d. 79, for the 
erection of a palace in each of the four proportions 
subtracted by order of Tuathal Teachmar, from each 
of the four provinces to form the present county of 
Meath. Her words are as follow : — " Taking the 
landing of Julius Csesar in Britain, in the year 55 
before Christ, as a fixed point of time, and counting 
back fifty years from that, we shall be brought to 
about one hundred years before the Christian era, at 
which time the introduction of the improvements and 
innovations of Zoroaster, and that also of fire towers, 
may, without straining probability, be supposed to 
have fully taken place. That it was not much earlier 
may be inferred from the before-mentioned ordinance 
of the year 79 a.d., to increase the number of towers 
in the different provinces." 

With great submission I conceive that the error 
here incurred originated on the lady's part, from mis- 
taking as authority the comment in the Statistical 
Survey, vol. iii. p. 320, which runs thus : — " It is 
quite evident from sundry authentic records, that 
these round towers were appropriated to the preserva- 
tion of the Baal-thinne, or sacred fire of Baal : first at 
the solemn convention at Tara, in the year of Christ 
79, in the reign of Tuathal Teachmar, it was enacted, 
that on the 31st of October annually, the sacred fire 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 89 

should be publicly exhibited from the stately tower of 
Tlactga, in Munster, from whence all the other repo- 
sitories of the Baal-thinne were to be re-kindled, in 
case they were by any accident allowed to go out. 
It was also enacted, that a particular tower should 
be erected for that purpose in each of the other four 
provinces, Meath being then a distinct province. For 
this purpose the tax called Scraball, of three-pence 
per head on all adults, was imposed." 

Well, for this is quoted " Psalter of Tara, by 
Comerford," page 51 ; on referring to which I find the 
text as thus : " He (Tuathal) also erected a stately 
palace in each of these proportions, viz., in that of 
Munster, the palace of Tlactga, where the fire of 
Tlactga was ordained to be kindled on the 31st of 
October, to summon the priests and augurs to con- 
sume the sacrifices offered to their gods ; and it was 
also ordained that no other fire should be kindled in 
the kingdom that night, so that the fire to be used in 
the country was to be derived from this fire ; for 
which privilege the people were to pay a scraball, 
which amounts to three-pence every year, as an ac- 
knowledgment to the Icing of Munster. The second 
palace was in that of Connaught, where the inhabitants 
assembled once a year, upon the first of May, to 
offer sacrifices to the principal deity of the island 
under the name of Beul, which was called the con- 
vocation of Usneagh ; and on account of this meeting 
the king of Connaught had from every lord of a 
manor, or chieftain of lands, a horse and arms. The 
third was at Tailtean, in the portion of Ulster, where 
the inhabitants of the kingdom brought their children 
when of age, and treated with one another about their 
marriage. From this custom the king of Ulster de- 



90 THE RQUND TOWERS. 

manded an ounce of silver from every couple married 
here. The fourth was the palace of Teamor or Tara, 
which originally belonged to the province of Leinster, 
and where the states of the kingdom met in a parlia- 
mentary way." 

I now leave the reader to decide whether the word 
" palace" can be well used to represent an " eccle- 
siastical tower," or indeed any tower at all ; or 
whether it is not rather a royal residence for the 
several provincial princes, that is meant to be con- 
veyed ; as is evident to the most superficial, from the 
closing allusion to the palace of Tara, " where the 
states of the kingdom met in a parliamentary way." 
The impost of the scraball, I must not omit to observe, 
has been equally mis-stated in the survey ; for it was 
not for the purpose of erecting any structures, but as 
an acknowledgment of homage and a medium of 
revenue that it was enforced, as will appear most 
clearly on reverting to the original, and comparing it 
with the other means of revenue, which the other 
provincial kings were entitled to exact. But what 
gives the complete overthrow to the doctrine which 
would identify those palaces with columnar edifices, is 
the fact that there are no vestiges to be found of 
Rowid Towers in any, certainly not in all of those four 
localities specially notified. Wells and Donaghmore 
are the only Round Towers now in the county Meath, 
and these are not included among the places above 
designated. 



91 



CHAPTER VIII. 

To wind up the matter, steadily and unequivocally I 
do deny that the " Round Towers " of Ireland were 
fire receptacles. I go farther, and deny that any of 
those eastern round edifices which travellers speak 
of, were ever intended for fire receptacles : that they 
were all pagan structures — and temples too — conse- 
crated to the most solemn and engrossing objects of 
human pursuit, however errroneously that pursuit may 
have been directed, I unhesitatingly affirm. What 
then, I shall be asked, was their design ? To this I 
beg leave to offer a circumlocutory answer. Squeam- 
ishness may be shocked, and invidiousness receive a 
pretext, but, the spirit being pure, the well-regulated 
mind will always say " Cur nescire pudens prave 
quam discere malo*?" 

Then be it known that the " Romid Towers " of 
Ireland were temples constructed by the early Indian 
colonists of the country, in honour of that fructifying 
principle of nature, emanating, as was supposed, from 
the sun, under the denomination of Sol, Phoebus, 
Apollo, Abad or Budh, &c. &c. ; and from the moon, 
under the epithet of Luna, Diana, Juno, Astarte, 
Venus, Babia or Butsee, &c. &c. Astronomy was 
inseparably interwoven with this planetary religion ; 
while the religion itself was characterized by en- 
forcing almost as strict a regard to the body after 

* Horace. 



92 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

death, as the body was expected to pay to a Supreme 
Essence before its mortal dissolution. Under this 
double sense then of funereal or posthumous regard, 
as well as active and living devotion, must I be under- 
stood to have used the expression, when previously 
declaring that our Sabiari rotundities were erected 
with the two-fold view of religious culture and the 
practice of that science with which it was so amal- 
gamated. 

To be explicit, I must recall to the reader's mind 
the destination which the Brahmins assigned to the 
Egyptian pyramids, on hearing Wilford's description 
of them — viz., that they were places appropriated to 
the worship of Padma-devi *. Before I proceed, 
however, I must state that I do not intend to make 
this the basis of what I shall designate my disclosures. 
It would be very foolish of me, if hoping to dislodge 
a ivorld of long-established prejudice, to use, as my 
lever, a ray shot transversely from a volume which 
has been tarnished by forgery. I need no such 
aid, as the sequel will show ; and yet were it requi- 
site, no objection would be valid, as the " Pundit " 
could have had no motive, either of interest or of 
vanity, such as influenced his transcriptions, here to 
mislead his victim. It was the mere utterance of a 
casual opinion, without reference to any deduction. 
Besides it was not the statement of the knave at all, but 
that of a number of religious men of letters, who all 
agreed in the ascription above laid down. They 
spoke, no doubt, from some traditionary acquaintance 
with the use of those tall round buildings which so 
much baffle antiquarians, not more in Ireland than 
they do in Hindostan ; but the explanation of this 

* Asiatic Researches, Dissert. Up. Egypt and Nile. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 93 

their answer will be a happy inlet — and as such only- 
do I mean to employ it — to the illustration of what we 
have been so long labouring at. 

The word Padma-devi * means " the deity of desire" 
as instrumental in that principle of universal gene- 
rativeness diffused throughout all nature. Do I mean 
that gross suggestion of carnal concupiscence ? — that 
mere propensity of animal appetite which is common 
to man with the brute creation ? No ; it became 
redeemed, if not justified, by the religious complexion 
with which it was intertwined, derived, mayhap, ori- 
ginally from that paradisiacal precept which said, 
" increase and multiply ;" while the strain of metaphor 
under which it was couched, and the spiritual ten- 
dency by which the ceremony was inculcated, pre- 
vented offence even to the most refined taste — the most 
susceptible fancy — or the most delicate sensibility. 

The love of offspring has ever been a powerful 
ingredient in man's composition. The fair portion of 
the human species, as every age and experience can 
prove, have shown themselves not more exempt from 
the control of the same emotions or the influence of 
the same impulses. It was so wisely instituted by 
the great Regulator of all things, nor is the abuse of 
the principle any argument against its general utility 
or sanctified intent. Search the records of all early 
states, and you will find the legislator and the priest, 
instead of opposing a principle so universally domi- 
nant, used their influence, on the contrary, to bring it 
more into play, and make its exercise subservient 
to the increase of our species ; the law lent its aid to 
enforce the theme as national, and religion sanctified 
it as a moral obligation. 

* Literally, " the goddess of the lotos." 



94 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

In India this fervor was particularly encouraged : 
for " as the Hindoos depend on their children for per- 
forming those ceremonies to their manes, which they 
believe tend to mitigate punishment in & future state, 
they consider the being deprived of them as a severe 
misfortune and the sign of an offended God*." They 
accordingly had recourse to all the stratagems which 
ingenuity could devise to recommend this passion to 
the inner senses, and dignify its nature by the studied 
imagery of metaphor and grace. In conformity with 
this sentiment we are favoured by Sir William Jones 
with the copy of a hymn, which they were in the 
habit of addressing to the above-mentioned " Padma- 
devi," or " Mollium mater sseva cupidinum," which 
he thus prefaces with her figurative descent : — 

It is Camadeva, that is, the god of desire, the oppo- 
site sex he speaks of, but the principle is the same. 

" Peor, his other name, when he enticed 
Israel in Sittim, on their march from Nile, 
To do him wanton rites, which cost them sore f .'' 

" According to the Hindu mythology, he was the 
son of Maya, or the general attracting power ^; that 
he was married to Ritty, or Affection ; and that his 

* Craufurd's Sketches. t Milton. 

% Maya also signifies illusion, of which as an operation of the Deity, 
the following remark, extracted elsewhere from Sir William, may not be 
unseasonable : — " The inextricable difficulties," says he, " attending the 
vulgar notion of material substances, concerning which ' we know this 
only, that we know nothing,' induced many of the wisest among the 
ancients, and some of the most enlightened among the moderns, to be- 
lieve that the whole creation was rather an energy than a work, by which 
the Infinite Being who is present at all times and in all places, exhibits 
to the minds of his creatures a set of perceptions, like a wonderful 
picture or piece of music, always varied, yet always uniform ; so that all 
bodies and their qualities exist, indeed, to every wise and useful purpose, 
but exist only as far as they are perceived — a theory no less pious lhan 
sublime, and as different /row any principle of atheism, as the brightest 
sunshine differs from the blackest midnight," 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 95 

bosom friend is Vassant, or the Spring : that he is 
represented as a beautiful youth, sometimes convers- 
ing- with his mother, or consort, in the midst of his 
gardens and temples : sometimes riding by moon- 
light on a parrot, and attended by dancing girls, 
or nymphs, the foremost of whom bears his colours, 
which are a fish on a red ground : that his favourite 
place of resort is a large tract of country round Agra, 
and principally the plain of Mathra, where Kreshen 
also, and the nine Gopia usually spend the night 
with music and dance : that his bow is of sugar-cane 
or flowers, the sting of bees, and his five arrows are 
each painted with an Indian blossom of an healing 
quality." Tedious and diffuse as has been the dis- 
sertation already, I cannot resist the inclination of 
transcribing the hymn also. 

" What potent god, from Agra's orient bowers, 
Floats through the lucid air ; whilst living flowers, 
With sunny twine, the vocal arbours wreathe, 
And gales enamoured heavenly fragrance breathe ? 

Hail, Power unknown ! for at thy beck 

Vales and groves their bosoms deck, 

And every laughing blossom dresses, 

With gems of dew, his musky tresses. 
I feel, I feel thy genial flame divine, 
And hallow thee, and kiss thy shrine. 

Knowest thou not me ? — 

Yes, son of Maya, yes, I know 

Thy bloomy shafts and cany bow, 
Thy scaly standard, thy mysterious arms, 
And all thy pains and all thy charms. 

Almighty Cama ! or doth Smara bright, 
Or proud Aranga, give thee more delight ? 

Whate'er thy seat, whate'er thy name, 

Seas, earth, and air, thy reign proclaim ; 

All to thee their tribute bring, 

And hail thee universal king. 



96 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Thy consort mild, Affection, ever true, 
Graces thy side, her vest of glowing hue, 
And in her train twelve blooming maids advance, 
Touch golden strings and knit the mirthful dance. 
Thy dreadful implements they hear, 
And wave them in the scented air, 
Each with pearls her neck adorning, 
Brighter than the tears of morning. 
Thy crimson ensign which before them flies, 
Decks with new stars the sapphire skies. 

God of the flowery shafts and flowery bow, 
Delight of all above and all below ! 
Thy loved companion, constant from his birth 
In heaven clep d Vassant, and gay Spring on earth, 
Weaves thy green robe, and flaunting bowers, 
And from the clouds draws balmy showers, 
He with fresh arrows fills thy quiver, 
(Sweet the gift, and sweet the giver,) 
And bids the various warbling throng 
Burst the pent blossoms with their song. 

He bends the luscious cane, and twists the string, 
With bees how sweet ! but ah, how keen their sting ! 
He with fine flowrets tips thy ruthless darts, 
Which through five senses pierce enraptured hearts. 
Strong Champa, rich in od'rous gold, 
Warm Amer, nursed in heavenly mould, 
Dry Nagkezer, in silver smiling, 
Hot Kiticum, our sense beguiling, 
And last, to kindle fierce the scorching flame, 
Loveshaft, which gods bright Bela name. 
Can men resist thy power, when Krishen yields, 
Krishen, who still in Mathra's holy fields, 
Tunes harps immortal, and to strains divine, 
Dances by moonlight with the Gopia nine ? 
Oh ! thou for ages born, yet ever young, 
For ages may thy Bramin's lav be sung : 
And when thy Lory spreads his emerald wings, 
To waft thee high above the tower of kings. 

Whilst o'er thy throne the moon's pale light 
Pours her soft radiance through the night, 
And to each floating cloud discovers 
The haunts of blesl or joyless Lovers, 
Thy milder influence to thy bard impart, 
To warm, but not consume his heart." 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 97 

Amongst the fables that are told to account for the 
origin of this amorous devotion, Sir William tells 
us, is the following", viz. — 

" Certain devotees in a remote time had acquired 
great renown and respect ; but the purity of the art 
was wanting; nor did their motives and secret 
thoughts correspond with their professions and ex- 
terior conduct. They affected poverty, but were at- 
tached to the things of this world, and the princes 
and nobles were constantly sending them offerings. 
They seemed to sequester themselves from the world ; 
they lived retired from the towns ; but their dwell- 
ings were commodious, and their women numerous 
and handsome. But nothing can be hid from the 
gods, and Sheevah resolved to expose them to shame. 
He desired Prakeety* to accompany him; and as- 
sumed, the appearance of a Pandaram of a graceful 
form. Prakeety appeared as herself, a damsel of 
matchless beauty. She went where the devotees 
were assembled with their disciples, waiting the rising- 
sun, to perform their ablutions f and religious cere- 
monies. As she advanced, the refreshing breeze 
moved her flowing robe, showing the exquisite shape 
which it seemed intended to conceal. With eyes cast 
down, though sometimes opening with a timid but a 
tender look, she approached them, and with a low 
enchanting voice desired to be admitted to the sacri- 
fice. The devotees gazed on her with astonishment. 
The sun appeared, but the purifications were for- 
gotten ; the things of the Poojah J lay neglected ; nor 

* Nature. 

t The Hindoos never bathe nor perform their ablutions whilst the 
sun is below the horizon. 

X Poojah is properly worship. 

H 



98 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

was any worship thought of but that to her. Quitting 
the gravity of their manners, they gathered round her 
as flies round the lamp at night, attracted by its 
splendour, but consumed by its flame. They asked 
from whence she came; whither she was going? 
' Be not offended with us for approaching thee ; for- 
give us for our importunities. But thou art incapable 
of anger, thou who art made to convey bliss ; to thee, 
who mayest kill by indifference ; indignation and re- 
sentment are unknown. But whoever thou mayest 
be, whatever motive or accident may have brought 
thee amongst us, admit us into the number of thy 
slaves; let us at least have the comfort to behold 
thee.' 

" Here the words faltered on the lip ; the soul 
seemed ready to take its flight ; the vow was for- 
gotten, and the policy of years destroyed. 

" Whilst the devotees were lost in their passions, 
and absent from their homes, Sheevah entered their 
village with a musical instrument in his hand, playing 
and singing like some of those who solicit charity. 
At the sound of his voice the women immediately 
quitted their occupations ; they ran to see from whom 
it came. He was beautiful as Krishen on the plains 
of Matra*. Some dropped their jewels without 
turning to look for them ; others let fall their gar- 
ments without perceiving that they discovered those 
abodes of pleasure which jealousy as well as decency 
has ordered to be concealed. All pressed forward 
with their offerings ; all wished to speak; all wished 
to be taken notice of; and bringing flowers and scat- 
tering them before him, said — ' Askest thou alms ! 

* Krishen of Matra may be called the Apollo of the Hindoos. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 99 

thou who art made to govern hearts ! Thou whose 
countenance is fresh as the morning ! whose voice is 
the voice of pleasure ; and thy breath like that of 
Vassant * in the opening rose ! Stay with us and we 
will serve thee ; nor will we trouble thy repose, but 
only be jealous how to please thee.' 

" The Pandaram continued to play, and sung the 
loves of Kamaf, of Krishen, and the Gopia, and 
smiling the gentle smiles of fond desire, he led them 
to a neighbouring grove that was consecrated to 
pleasure and retirement. Sour began to gild the 
western mountains, nor were they offended at the 
retiring day. 

" But the desire of repose succeeds the waste of 
pleasure. Sleep closed the eyes and lulled the senses. 
In the morning the Pandaram was gone. When 
they awoke they looked round with astonishment, and 
again cast their eyes on the ground. Some directed 
their looks to those who had been formerly remarked 
for their scrupulous manners, but their faces were 
covered with their veils. After sitting awhile in 
silence, they arose, and went back to their houses 
with slow and troubled steps. The devotees re- 
turned about the same time from their wanderings 
after Prakeety. The days that followed were days of 
embarrassment and shame. If the women had failed 
in their modesty, the devotees had broken their vows. 
They were vexed at their weakness ; they were sorry 
for what they had done ; yet the tender sigh some- 
times broke forth, and the eye often turned to where 
the men first saw the maid, the women the Pandaram. 

" But the people began to perceive that what the 

* Vassant, the spring. t Kama, the god of love. 

ii 2 



100 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

devotees foretold came not to pass. Their disciples 
in consequence neglected to attend them, and the 
offerings from the princes and the nobles became less 
frequent than before. They then performed various 
penances ; they sought for secret places among the 
woods, unfrequented by man ; and having at last shut 
their eyes from the things of this world, retired 
within themselves in deep meditation, that Sheevah 
was the author of their misfortunes. Their under- 
standing being imperfect, instead of bowing the head 
with humility, they were inflamed with anger ; in- 
stead of contrition for their hypocrisy, they sought 
for vengeance. They performed new sacrifices and 
incantations, which were only allowed to have effect 
in the end, to show the extreme folly of man in not 
submitting 1 to the will of heaven. 

" Their incantations produced a tiger, whose mouth 
was like a cavern, and his voice like thunder among 
the mountains. They sent him against Sheevah, who, 
with Prakeety, was amusing himself in the vale. He 
smiled at their weakness, and killing the tiger at one 
blow with his club, he covered himself with his skin. 
Seeing themselves frustrated in this attempt, the 
devotees had recourse to another, and sent serpents 
against him of the most deadly kind; but on ap- 
proaching him they became harmless, and he twisted 
them round his neck. They then sent their curses 
and imprecations against him, but they all recoiled 
upon themselves. Not yet disheartened by all these 
disappointments, they collected all their prayers, their 
penances, their charities, and other good works, the 
most acceptable of all sacrifices ; and demanding in 
return only vengeance against Sheevah, they sent a 
consuming fire to destroy his genital parts. Sheevah, 



[To face page 101. 




CLONDALKIN. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 101 

incensed at this attempt, turned the fire with in- 
dignation against the human race ; and mankind 
would have been soon destroyed, had not Vishnou, 
alarmed at the danger, implored him to suspend his 
wrath. At his entreaties Sheevah relented. But it 
was ordained that in his temples those parts should 
be worshipped which the false devotees had impiously 
attempted to destroy # ." 

But what was the form under which this deity was 
recognized ? " Look on this picture and on that ;" 
and the answer presents itself f. The eastern vota- 
ries, suiting the action to the idea, and that their 
vivid imagination might be still more enlivened by 
the very form of the temple in which they addressed 
their vows, actually constructed its architecture after 
the model of the membrum virile, which, obscenity 
apart, is the divinely-formed and indispensable me- 
dium selected by God himself for human propaga- 
tion and sexual prolificacy. 

This was the Phallus, of which we read in 
Lucian J, as existing in Syria of such extraordinary 
height, and which, not less than the Egyptian Pyra- 
mids, has heretofore puzzled antiquaries, — little 
dreaming that it was the counterpart of our Round 
Towers, and that both were the prototypes of the 
two "Pillars" which Hiram wrought before the temple 
of Solomon. 

Astarte was the divinity with whose worship it 
was thus associated, and by that being understood 

* Translated from the Persic, and read before the Oriental Society in 
India. 

t The reason why the Egyptian Pyramids, though comprehending the 
same idea, did not exhibit this form, will be assigned hereafter. 

J In his treatise " De Dea Syria." 



102 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

the moon *, it was natural to suppose that the study 
of the stars would essentially enter into the ceremo- 
nial of her worship. Another name by which this 
divinity was recognized, was Rimmon, which, signify- 
ing as it does pomegranate, was a very happy emblem 
of fecundity, as apples are known to be the most pro- 
lific species of fruit. 

Lingam is the name by which the Indians de- 
signated this idol f. Those who dedicate themselves 
to his service swear to observe inviolable chastity. 
" They do not, however," says Craufurd, " like the 
priests of Atys, deprive themselves of the means of 
breaking their vows ; but were it discovered that they 
had in any way departed from them, the punishment 
is death. They go naked ; but being considered as 
sanctified persons, the women approach them without 
scruple, nor is it thought that their modesty should 
be offended by it. Husbands, whose wives are bar- 
ren, solicit them to come to their houses, or send 
their wives to worship Lingam at the temples ; and 
it is supposed that the ceremonies on this occasion, if 
performed with the proper zeal, are usually productive 
of the desired effect J." 

* Astarto, queen of heaven, with crescent horns, 
To whose bright image nightly by the moon, 
Sidonian virgins paid their vows and songs." — Milton. 
t Les Indiens ont le Lingam qui ajoute encore quelque chose a 
l'infamie du Phallus des Egyptiens et des Grecs : ils adorent le faux 
dicu Isoir sous cette figure monstreuse, et qu'ils exposent en procession 
insultant d'une maniere horrible a la pudcur et a la credulite de l;i 
populace. — La Croze, p. 43 1 . 

| We can now see how it happened that the Irish word Toradh, i. e., 
" to go through the tower ceremony," should signify also " to be preg- 
nant ;" and we can equally unravel the mtjthos of that elegant little 
tale which Sir John Malcolm tells us from Ferdosi, in his History of 
Persia. " It is related," says he, " that Gal, when taking the amusement 
of the chase, came to the foot of a tower, <m one of the turrets of which 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 103 

Such was the origin and design of the most ancient 
Indian pagodas, which had no earthly connexion with 
fire or fire-worshippers, as generally imagined. — And 
that such, also, was the use and origin of the Irish 
pagodas is manifest from the name by which they are 
critically and accurately designated, viz., Budh, which, 
in the Irish language, signifies not only the Sun, as 
the source of generative vegetation, but also the male 
organ of procreative generativeness, consecrated, ac- 
cording to their foolish ideas, to Baal Phearagh or 
Deus- coitionis, by and by to be elucidated. This 
thoroughly explains the word " Cathoir-ghall," or 
" temple of delight," already mentioned as appropriated 
to one of those edifices, and is still further confirmed 
by the name of " Teaumpal na greine," or " temple of 
the sun," by which another of them is called * while 
the ornament, that has been known to exist on the 
top of many of them, represents the crescent of 
Sheevah, the matrimonial deity of the Indians, agree- 
ably to what the Heetopades states, viz., " may he 
on whose diadem is a crescent cause prosperity to the 
people of the earth." 

But you will say that my designating these struc- 
tures by the name of Budh is a gratuitous assumption, 
for which I have no authority other than what imagi- 
nation may afford me ; and that, therefore, however 
striking may be appearances, you will withhold your 
conviction until you hear my proofs. Sir, I advance 
nothing that I cannot support by arguments, and 

he saw a young damsel of the most exquisite beauty. They mutually 
gazed and loved, but there appeared no mode of ascending the battle- 
ment. After much embarrassment, an expedient occurred to the fair 
maiden. She loosened her dark and beautiful tresses, which fell in 
ringlets to the bottom of the tower, and enabled the enamoured prince 
to ascend. The lady proved to be Noudabah, the daughter of Merab, 
king of Cabul, a prince of the race of Zohauk." 



104 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

should not value your adherence were it not earned 
by truth. This is too important an investigation to 
allow fancy any share therein. It is not the mere 
settlement of an antiquarian dispute of individual in- 
terest or isolated locality that is involved in its adjust- 
ment, — no, its bearings are as comprehensive as its 
interest should be universal ; the opinions of lrankind 
to a greater extent than you suppose will be affected by 
its determination ; and I should despise myself if, by 
any silly effort of ingenuity, I should attempt to lead 
your reason captive, or pander to your credulity, 
rather than storm your judgment. 

This being premised, I shall not condescend, here or 
elsewhere, to apologize for the freedom with which I 
shall express myself in the prosecution of my ideas. 
The spirit that breathes over the face of the work will 
protect me from the venom of ungenerous imputation. 
Freedom is indispensable to the just development 
of the subject. Nor do I dread any bad results can 
accrue from such a course, knowing that it is the 
vicious alone who can extract poison from my page — 
and they could do it as well in a museum or picture 
gallery — while the virtuous will peruse it in the 
purity of their own conceptions, and if they rise not 
improved, they will, at least, not deteriorated. 

My authority for assigning to the Round Towers 
the above designation is nothing less than those 
annals before adduced*. Where is it there? you 
reply. I rejoin in Fidh-Nemphed ; which, as it has 
heretofore puzzled all the world to develop, I shall 
unfold to the reader with an almost miraculous result. 
Fidh, then — as the Ulster Annals, or Fiadh, as those 
of the Four Masters spell it — is the plural of Budh, 

Chapter IV. p. 48. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 105 

i. e., Lingam; the initial F of the former being only 
the aspirate of the initial B of the latter, and com- 
mutable with it*; and Nemphed is an adjective, sig- 
nifying divine or consecrated, from Nemph, the heavens: 
so that Fidh-Nemphed, taken together, will import the 
Consecrated Lingams, or the Budhist Consecrations. 

Celestial indexes, cries O'Connor; following which 
term — but with a very different acceptation — the reader 
must be aware how that, in the early part of our 
journey, I ascribed to this enigma an astronomical 
exposition ; but herein I was supported not only by 
expediency but by verity, having, all along, not only 
connected Solar worship, and its concomitant survey 
of the stars — which is Sabianism — with Phallic wor- 
ship — beginning with the former in order to prepare 
the way for the latter, — but shall proceed in detail 
until I establish their identity. 

The Egyptian history, then, of the origin of this 
deification is what will put this question beyond the 
possibility of denial, viz., that " Isis having recovered 
the mangled pieces of her husband's body, the geni- 
tals excepted, which the murderers had thrown into 
the sea, resolving to render him all the honour which 
his humanity had merited, got made as many waxen 
statues as there were mangled pieces of his body. 
Each statue contained a piece of the flesh of the dead 
monarch. And Isis, after she had summoned in her 
presence, one by one, the priests of all the different 
deities in her dominions, gave them each a statue, 

* Syncellus accordingly spells Budh, even in the singular number, with 
an F; and Josephus, from the Scriptures, additionally commutes the 
final d into t. We shall see more inflections anon. 

$?ou% e£ ov r^a^Xohi'ra.u — Syncellus, p. 47. 

Fut was the founder of the nations in Libya (Africa), and the people 
were from him called Futi. — Josephus, Ant. lib. i. c. 7. 



106 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

intimating that, in so doing, she had preferred them to 
all the other communities of Egypt ; and she bound 
them by a solemn oath that they would keep secret 
that mark of her favour, and endeavour to prove their 
sense of it by establishing a form of worship, and 
paying divine honours to their prince. But that part 
of the body of Osiris which had not been discovered, 
was treated with more particular attention by I sis, and 
she ordered that it should receive honours more solemn, 
and at the same time more mysterious, than the other 
members *." 

Now as Isis "j" and Osiris — two deities, by the way, 
which comprehended all nature and all the gods of 
the ancients — only personated the Sun and Moon, the 
sources of nutrition and vegetative heat, it is very 
easy to remove the veil of this affectionate mythology, 
and see that it means nothing more than the mutual 
dependence and attraction of the sexes upon, and to, 
each other ; while the fact of the Egyptian " Osiris £," 
which in their language signifies the Sun, and the 
Irish " Budh" which in our language signifies the 
same planet, being doth represented by the same em- 
blematic sign § ; and the name of that sign in both 
languages signifying as well sign as thing signified, 
gives a stamp to my proof which I defy ingenuity to 
overthrow. 

* Vide Plutarch, de Isi et Osiri. 

t Eas, in Irish, also means the moon. 

% Literally the Son of the Sun, and should properly be written 
O'Siris, like any of our Irish names, such as O'Brien— and meaning 
sprung from. 

§ These are the indexes for which Mr. O'Connor could find no other 
use than that of dials ! 



107 



CHAPTER IX. 

What is it, then, that we see here elucidated ? Just 
conceive. For the last three thousand years and 
more, the learning- of the world has been employed 
to ascertain the origin of the doctrine of Budhism. 
The savants of France, the indefatigable inquirers of 
Germany, the affected pedants of Greece and Rome, 
and the pure and profound philosophers of ancient 
India and Egypt, have severally and ineffectually 
puzzled themselves to dive into the secrets of that 
mystic religion *. 

" The conflicting opinions," says Coleman, " which 
have prevailed among the most intelligent oriental 
writers, respecting the origin and antiquity of this 
and the Jaina sects, and the little historical light that 
has yet been afforded to disperse the darkness that 
ages have spread over them, leave us, at the end of 
many learned disquisitions, involved in almost as 
many doubts as when we commenced upon them." 

" There was, then," adds Gentil, " in those parts of 
India, and principally on the coast of Choromandel and 
Ceylon, a sort of worship the precepts of which we are 
quite unacquainted with. The god Baouth, of whom 

* Les mysteres de l'antiquite nous sont demeures presqu'interdicls ; les 
vestiges de ses monuments manquent le plus souvent de sens pour nous, 
parceque, de siecle en siecle, les savants ont voulu leur attiibuer un 
sens. — De Sacy. 



108 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

at present they know no more in India than the name, 
was the object of this worship ; but it is now totally 
abolished, except that there may possibly yet be 
found some families of Indians who have remained 
faithful to Baouth, and do not acknowledge the re- 
ligion of the Brahmins, and who are on that account 
separated from and despised by the other castes .... 
I made various inquiries concerning this singular 
figure, and the Zamulians one and all assured me 
that this was the god Baouth, who was now no longer 
regarded, for that his worship and his festivals had 
been abolished ever since the Brahmins had made 
themselves masters of the people's faith." 

11 The worship of Budha," says Heeren, " concern- 
ing the rise and progress of which we at present 
know so little, still flourishes in Ceylon." Again, "All 
that we know with certainty of Budha is, that he was 
the founder of a sect which must formerly have pre- 
vailed over a considerable part of India, but whose 
tenets and forms of worship were in direct opposition 
to those of the Brahmins, and engendered a deadly 
hate between the two parties, which terminated in 
the expulsion of the Budhists from the country*." 



* To this declaration of Mr. Heeren, as I cannot now bestow upon 
it a separate inquiry, I must be allowed briefly to intimate that if such 
be all that he " knows with certainty*' on the topic, he had better not 
know it at all, for, with the exception of that part which avows the gene- 
ral ignorance concerning its rise and progress, as well as its expulsion by 
the Brahmins from the East, all the rest is inaccurate. In the first place 
it does not "flourish" at present in Ceylon. It has sunk and degene- 
rated there into an unmeaning tissue of hideous demonology, if we may 
judge by a reference to a large work published here some time ago, hy 
Mr. Upham, which is as opposite from real Budhism as truth is from 
falsehood. In the second place its tenets were not " in direct opposition 
lo those of the Brahmins," anymore than those of the Catholics are from 
the tenets of the Protestants : vet have the latter contrived to oust the Cn- 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 109 

" The real time," say the Asiat. Res., viii. p. 505, 
" at which Buddha propagated the doctrines ascribed 
to him, is a desideratum which the learned knowledge 
and indefatigable research of Sir W. Jones have still 
left to be satisfactorily ascertained." 

" If the Budhaic religion/' says the Westminster 
Review of January, 1830, " really arrived at pre- 
dominance in India, its rise in the first place, and more 
especially its extirpation, are not merely events of stu- 
pendous magnitude, but of impenetrable mystery." 

It will soon appear, that however impenetrable here- 
tofore, it is so no longer. Indeed a great deal of the 
principle of their faith has been at all times under- 
stood, but under different associations. It was that 
which Job alluded to when he said, " If I gazed upon 
Orus (the sun) when he was shining, or upon J'arecha 
(the moon) when rising in her glory ; and my heart 
went secretly after them, and my hand kissed my 
mouth (in worship), I should have denied the God 
that is above." 

So far all have arrived at the discovery of this 
creed ; and accordingly, if you look into any encyclo- 
pedia or depository of science for a definition of the 
word Budhism, you will be told that " it is the doc- 
trine of solar worship as taught by Budha." There 
never was such a person as Budha — I mean at the 
outset of the religion, when it first shot into life, and 
that was almost as early as the creation of man. In 
later times, however, several enthusiasts assumed the 
name, and personified in themselves the faith they 

tholics, their predecessors, as the Brahmins did the still more antecedent 
Budhists. And this will be sufficient to neutralize that insinuation 
which would imply that Budha was an innovator and a sectarian, until 
I show by and by that the reverse was the fact. 



110 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

represented. But the origin of the religion was an 
abstract thought, which while Creuzer allows, yet he 
must acknowledge his ignorance of what that thought 
was. 

The sun and moon were the great objects of re- 
ligious veneration to fallen man in the ancient world. 
Each country assumed a suitable form to their pro- 
pensities and peculiarities ; but all agreed in center- 
ing the essence of their zeal upon those resplendent 
orbs to whom they were indebted for so many com- 
mon benefits. Those mysteries of faith to which the 
" initiated " alone had access, and which were dis- 
guised in the habiliments of symbols and of veils, 
were neither more nor less than representative forms 
of generation and production. These were the theme 
which made the canopy of the firmament to ring with 
their songs ; and these the spring which gave vigour 
and elasticity to those graceful displays which, under 
the name of dances, typified the circular and semi- 
circular rotations of those bright objects of their re- 
gard *. 

The Eleusinian f rites themselves were essentially 
of this kind ; for though the benefits of agriculture 
were said to be chiefly there commemorated, this 
after all resolves itself into the above : for, as the 
process of the earth's bearing is similar to that of our 
own species, and indeed of all creatures that rest 

* The Jews themselves, so early as the time of Moses, adopted the 
practice as an act of thanksgiving. 

" And Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron, took a timbrel in 
her hand ; and all the women went out alter her, with timbrels, and with 
dances. 

" And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord, for he hath tri- 
umphed gloriously ; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the 
sea."- Exod. xv. '20, 21. 

t The origin of this word shall be explained hereafter. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. Ill 

• 

upon her — no seed bringing forth fruit until, as the 
Apostle has affirmed *, it first dies — the representa- 
tion of this miracle of nature's vicissitudes led the 
mind to the contemplation of general fecundity. And 
hence the culture of the ground, and the propagation 
of human beings, being both viewed in the same 
light, and sometimes even named by the same epithet, 
viz., tillage, were inculcated no less as beneficial 
exercises than as religious ordinances. Did a doubt 
remain as to the accuracy of this connexion between 
the worship of the ancients and their sexual cor- 
respondence, it would be more than removed by 
attending to the import of the terms by which they 
mystified those celebrations, and which, with the 
sanctity attached to the parts themselves, will come 
consecutively under our review. One of them, how- 
ever, is too apposite to be omitted here, and that is 
the term by which they designated a certain cere- 
mony still practised on the coast of Guinea, and which 
neither the blandishments of artifice nor the terrors of 
menace could ever prevail upon them to divulge. This 
ceremony they call Belli-Paaro. The meaning they 
assign to it is regeneration, or the act of reviving from 
death to a new state of existence ; and when we see 
that the name itself is but an inflection of the Baal- 
Peor of the Scriptures, the Baal-Phearagh of our 
forefathers, and the Copulative deity of the amative 
universe, it will not be hard to dive into its character, 
though so shrouded in types. 

But the Budhists, not content with this ordinary 
veneration, or with paying homage in secret to that 

* " Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a corn of wheat fall into the 
.ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much 
fruit." — John xii. 24. 



112 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

symbol of production which all other classes of idola- 
ters equally, though privately, worshipped — I mean 
the Lingam — thought they could never carry their 
zeal sufficiently far, unless they erected it into an idol 
of more than colossal magnitude — and those idols 
were the Round Towers. Hence the name Budhism, 
which I thus define, viz., that species of idolatry which 
worshipped Budh (i. e., the Lingam) as the emblem 
of Budh (i. e., the Sun) — Budh signifying, indiscrimi- 
nately, Sun and Lingam. 

Such was the whole substance of this philosophical 
creed, which was not — as may have been imagined — 
a ritual of sensuality, but a manual of devotion, as 
simple in its exercise as it was pious in its intent — a 
Sabian veneration and a symbolical gratitude. I shall 
now give a summary of their moral code, couched in 
the following Pentalogue, as presented by Zarado- 
beira, chief Rahan at Ava, to a Catholic bishop, who 
expressed a wish, some years ago, to be favoured with 
a brief outline of their tenets ; it is this : — 

1. Thou shalt not kill any animal — from the meanest 
insect up to man himself. 

2. Thou shalt not steal. 

3. Thou shalt not commit adultery. 

4. Thou shalt not tell any thing false. 

5. Thou shalt not drink any intoxicating liquor. 
The extension of this first commandment from the 

crime of homicide to the deprivation of life of any 
breathing existence, arose from their doctrine of the 
transmigration of souls, which they believed should 
continue ever in action, and, after release from one 
tenement of earthly configuration, enter into some 
other of a different species and order. 

In this incessant alternation — which was to be one of 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 113 

ascent or of descent, according to the merits of the body, 
which the spirit had last animated, and which was 
all considered as a sort of lustral crucible, for the re- 
fining of the vital spark against its reunion with the 
Godhead, whence it had originally derived — it is 
manifest that such tenderness for the entire animal 
creation arose from the apprehension of slaying some 
relation in that disguise. — Or, did we ascribe it to no 
higher motive than a sympathy with fellow-creatures, 
which, if not equally responsible, are at all events 
susceptible of anguish and of pain, this in itself 
should teach us to suppress all ebullitions of irre- 
verent sarcasm, and, if we yield not our acquiescence, 
to extend to it at least our commiseration. 

" Pain not the ant that drags the grain along the ground, 
It has life, and life is sweet and delightful to all to whom it belongs.*" 

The good works which they were additionally en- 
joined to perform were classified under the two heads 
of Dana and Bavana. By "Dana" was meant the 
giving of alms, and hence the whole fraternity were 
called Danaans or Almoners f. By " Bavana " was 

* We are told, — says Sir John Malcolm — in a Persian work of celebrity, 
the Attash Kuddah,— that a person dreamt he saw Ferdosi composing, 
and an angel was guiding his pen : he looked near, and discovered 
that he had just written the above couplet, in which he so emphatically 
pleads for humanity to the smallest insect of the creation. 

f Another Almoner was an epithet they assigned to God, which even 
the Brahmins retained after they had seceded from them, as may be 
seen in Wilkins' translation of a Sanscrit inscription on a pillar near 
Buddal, published in the first volume of the " Asiatic Researches/' 
This inscription, I must observe, as it escaped that learned orientalist 
to perceive it, as it equally did the acumen of the president, his anno- 
tator, is, with the column on which it appears, nothing else than a record 
of the triumphs obtained by a hero of the Braminical party in exter- 
minating the Budhists. The frequent allusion to the " lustful ele- 

I 



114 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

understood the thoughtfully 'pronouncing those three 
words, Anuzza, Docha, and Anatta : of which the 
first implies our liability to vicissitude ; the second 
to misfortune, and the third our inability to exempt 
ourselves from either *. 

The exposition of the terms Tuath and de, as pre- 
fixes to Danaans, forming with it the compound Tuath- 
de-danaan, I shall reserve for a more befitting place. 



phants," — such as " whose piles of rocks reek with the juice exuding 
from the heads of intoxicated elephants,'* — and " Although the prospect 
hidden by the dust arising from the multitude of marching force 
was rendered clear from the earth being watered by constant and 
abundant streams flowing from the heads of lustful elephants of various 
breeds," — and still' more that beautiful and pathetic sentiment which 
occurs in the original of the preceding paper, omitted by Mr. Wilkins, 
but supplied by the president, viz., " by whom having conquered the 
earth as far as the ocean, it was left as being unprofitably seized — so 
he declared ; and his elephants weeping saw again in the forests their 
kindred whose eyes were full of tears f — make this a demonstration : 
yet would the beauty of the image be lost to some of my readers, were I 
not to explain that the Budhists treated with a sort of deified reverence 
the tribe of elephants, which now bewailed their extermination as above 
described. 

* From Bavana was named the village of Banaven, in Scotland, 
whither some of the Tuath-de-danaans had repaired after their retreat 
from Ireland — a very appropriate commemoration of their recent sub- 
version ; and a particular locality within its district, where St. Patrick 
was born, was called Nemph-Thur, that is, the holy tower, correspond- 
ing to Budh-NempJi, . i. e., the holy Lingam, from the circumstance of 
there having been erected on it one of those temples which lime has 
since effaced. Tor-Boileh upon the Indus, which means the Tower of 
Baal, is in exact consonance with Nemph-Thur and with Budh-Nemph ; 
and there can be no question but that there also stood one of those edi- 
fices, as the ruins even of a city are perceptible in the neighbourhood. 
Mr. Wilford, however, would translate this last name, Tor Boileh, by 
Black Beilam : and, to keep this colour in countenance, he invents a new 
name for a place called Peleiam, "which," he says, "appears to have 
been transposed from Ac Beilam, or the white Beilam. sands or shores, 
and now called ' Hazren.' " I am not surprised at the discredit brought 
upon etymology. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 1]5 

Meantime I hasten to redeem my " pledge" as to the 
elucidation of the import of the name Hibernian. 

In the wide range of literary disquisition there is no 
one topic which has so engrossed the investigation of 
studious individuals as the origin of the word Hiber- 
nia. The great Bochart, the uncertain Valiancy, the 
spiteful Macpherson, the pompous O'Flaherty, and the 
" antiquary of antiquaries," Camden himself, — with a 
thousand others unworthy of recognition, — have been 
all consecutively shipwrecked upon its unapproachable 
sand-banks. But the most miserable failure of all is 
that of a namesake of my own, the author of a Dic- 
tionary upon the language of his country; who, in his 
mad zeal for an outlandish conceit, foists into his book 
a term, with which our language owns no kindred, and 
then builds upon that a superstructure which " would 
make even the angels weep." 

This gentleman would fain make out * that, because 
those islands have been denominated the Cassiterides, 
or Tin Reservoirs, therefore Eirin, our own one of them, 
must have been so called as an Iron Store! forgetting 
that the genius of our vocabulary has never had a term 
whereby to express that metal at all — that by which 
we now designate it, namely iarun, being only a modern 
coinage from the English word, — as the general voice 
of antiquity speaks trumpet-ton gued on the point, and 
the fragments of our Brehon laws give it insuperable 
confirmation, that iron was the last metal which man- 
kind has turned to profit, or even known to exist, while 
with us it was an exotic until a very recent period, j" 

* And this, too, after he had admitted that " the name is certainly of 
the pure Iberno-Celtic dialect, and must have had some meaning founded 
in the nature of things in its original and radical fol•mation.'' , 

•(• All our ancient swords were made of brass. 

i 2 



ilG THE ROUND TOWERS. 

But admitting that Eirin or Erin did signify the Land 
of Iron, then its Greek formation Ieme must convey 
the same idea, and so must Hibernia, their Latin inflec- 
tion ; and it would afford me a considerable portion of 
merriment to behold any champion for this iron-cased 
knight buckle on his etymological armour, and analyze 
these two last terms so as to make them indicate the 
land of iron. 

Yet pitiable as this appears, for the author of an 
Irish Dictionary, its ingenuity, at all events, must 
screen it from contempt. But how will the public 
estimate the brightness of that man's intellect, who 
would state that Erin is but a metempsychosis of the 
word Green? Will it be believed that such is the 
sober utterance of the author of the " Decline and 
Fall of the Roman Empire 1 " But lest I should mis- 
represent, I shall let him speak for himself: viz. " Ire- 
land, from its luxuriant vegetation, obtained the epi- 
thet Green, and has preserved, with a slight alteration, 
the name Erin." * 

So that a country which piques itself on its Irishry, 
has remained ever without a cognomen, until the Eng- 
lish language has been matured ; and then, in compli- 
ment to her sister, Britain, — has borrowed an adjective 
from her rainbow, which, however, she had not the 
good manners to preserve pure, but allowed to dege- 
nerate so far, that the sagacity of a conjurer could 
not trace any resemblance between this vitiation 
and the original epithet which pourtraycd her verdure ! 

Have we not here the solution of that general disbe- 
lief which attaches to proofs deduced from etymology? 
It is so in all professions, when quacks break into the 
fold, and usurp the office of the legitimate practitioner. 

* Gibbon, vol. ii. p. 527. 4to. 1781. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 117 

Etymology, in itself, is an exalted science, and an 
unerring standard ; but the mountebanks that have 
intermeddled with her holy tools, and disjointed the 
symmetry of her fair proportions, knowing no more of 
the foundation of languages than they do of the origin 
of spirit, have sunk it into a pandemonium of hackling, 
mangling and laceration, at which " the satirist," per- 
haps, may laugh, but "the philosopher," who has any 
regard for the right thinking of society, and the im- 
planting in the tender mind a correct idea of words, at 
a moment when impressions are so wrought as to be 
ineffaceable, will feel differently on the subject ; and, if 
he cannot reform, do all that he can to expose it ! 

How opposite has been the conduct of the learned 
Abbe Mac Geoghegan as to the origin of this abstruse 
word! After reviewing, in his able work*, the opi- 
nions offered by the several persons who wrote before 
him upon the question, and none of them giving him 
satisfaction, he freely acknowledges, when unable to 
supply the deficiency, that " the derivation of this 
name is unknown." He was right : but the spell is at 
last broken. 

As a sequel to this avowal, I must be allowed to 
quote at full length the extract from Avienus, which 
has been already referred to. 

" Ast hinc, duobus in Sacram — sic Insulam 
Dixere prisci — solibus cursus rati est ; 
Hsec inter undas multum cespitem jacit ; 
Eamque late gens Hibernorum colit, 
Propinqua rursus insula Albionum patet," — 

that is, two days' sail will take you thence (from the 
Sorlings) to the Sacred Island ; as so denominated by 

* Histoire dlrelande, vol. i. cap. 7. 



118 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

the men of old. A rich gleby soil distinguishes this 
favourite of the waters ; and the race of the Hiber- 
nians cultivate it in its wide extent. Close by, again, 
is situated the isle of the Albiones. 

Without dwelling upon the importance which he 
attaches to this " Sacred Island," while he disposes of 
England in one single line, I ask any person, at all con- 
versant with letters, whether it was as a vernacular 
epithet, or not rather in compliance with his hexame- 
ters, and the rules of metrical versification, which 
rendered inconvenient the exhibition of the name it- 
self, that the poet paraphrased its meaning, and gave 
insula sacra as its equivalent ? 

Is not the country inhabited by the Gauls called 
Gallia ; that occupied by the Britons, Britannia ; that 
possessed by the Indians, India ; that peopled by the 
Germans, Germania ; and that tenanted by the Arca- 
dians, Arcadia ? Consequently, the land inhabited by 
the people styled Hibernians must, by universal ana- 
logy, be denominated Hibernia. And if this signifies 
" Sacred Island," of course i( Hibernian " must mean 
" an inhabitant of the Sacred Island." 

Avienus wrote about the three hundredth year of 
the Christian era, and cites the authorities, whence he 
derived his information, to the following purpose, viz. — 

" Himilco, the Phoenician, has recorded that he 
has himself traversed the ocean, and with his own 
eyes and senses verified those facts. From the 
remote annals of the Phoenicians, I copy the same, 
and present them to you as handed down from anti- 
quity." 

Himilco, be it remarked, flourished six hundred 
years before the name of Christianity was mentioned 
in the world ; and when his acquaintance with this 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 1J9 

isle, and that of his countrymen in general, is thus 
irrefutably premised, we shall be the more ready to do 
justice to that observation made by Tacitus, when, in 
his " Life of Agricola," talking of Ireland relatively 
to England, he affirmed that " her coasts and harbours 
were better known, through commerce and mercantile 
negotiation," than those of the latter country*. 

Why do I introduce this notice here ? To show that 
it was not to the Latins Avienus was indebted for his 
insight into that term, which we thus pursue. The 
Romans knew nothing even of the situation of the 
place that bore it, until their avarice and their rapacity 
brought their eagles to Britain ; and, after effecting the 
subjugation of that heroic island, it is no small incen- 
tive to our vanity, to see their historian constrained to 
confess, that the exhibition of a similar project against 
the liberties of Ireland was more with a view to over- 
awe, than from any hopes of succeeding * ; while the 
ignorance which he evinces in another clause of that 
very sentence, whence the above extract has been 
quoted, — placing Ireland midway between Spain and 
England, — is proof incontrovertible of the position 
which has been assumed. 

But it is to me immaterial whether Avienus was 
aware or otherwise that " Hibernia" and " Sacred 
Island " were convertible and synonimous. It is not 
by his authority that I mean to establish the fact ; for 
even admitting his cognizance of the identity of these 
two terms, he must yet of necessity be unacquainted 
with the root whence they both had sprung; and, 
accordingly, I have only put him here in the fore- 

* Melius (HiberniEe quam Britannise) aditus — portusque per commercia 
et negociatores cogniti. Tacit., vit. Agricol. 499. 
t Plus in metum quan in spem. 



120 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

ground — as has been the plan all through — " to break 
the ice," as it were, for the exordium of the promised 
denouement-. 

Iran, then, and Irin, or, as more correctly spelled, 
Eirean and Eirin, with an e prefixed to each of the 
other vowels, as well initial as intermediate, is the 
characteristic denomination which all our ancient 
manuscripts affix to this country. There is no excep- 
tion to this admitted rule. From the romance to the 
annal, the observation holds good ; it is an inalienable 
landmark, and of inviolable unanimity. 

Dionysius of Sicily, who wrote about fifty years 
before the Advent, and who cannot be suspected of 
much partiality towards our forefathers, calls the land 
they inhabited by the name of Irin*. Nor will the cir- 
cumstance of his applying to it, in another place, the 
variation Iris, detract from this fact; as it is evi- 
dent that he only manufactured this latter, having 
occasion to use a nominative case, which he thought 
that Irin would not well represent, and so, with the 
lubricity of a Greek, ever sacrificing sense to sound +, 
he gave birth to a conception which strangled the 
original. ^ 

* "uffTTi^ XO.I Tdlt T$(>lTrtt.VCOV TOUf CIXOVTUS TJJV OVOfiago/U.lV>)¥ XfilV. 

Diod. Sic. lib. v. 

t In proof of this, I aver that I could go through the whole range of 
their language, and prove that in its fabrication, so punctilious was their 
regard to euphony, they scrupled not to cancel, or otherwise obnebulate 
the essential and significant letters of the primitive words : so that, in a 
few generations, their descendants were unable to trace the true roots of 
their compounds. Hence that lamentable imperfection which pervades 
all our Lexicons and Dictionaries, and which can never he rectified but 
by the revisal of the whole system, and that by a thorough adept in the 
language of the Irish. 

I I say strangled, because Irin is a compound word, embracing within 
its compass two distinct parts, of which Iris could give but the spirit of 
one. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 121 

In the " Life of Gildas," an early and eminent Eng- 
lish ecclesiastic, we find it called Ireri, when the bio- 
grapher, talking of the proficiency made by his subject 
in literary pursuits, says that he betook himself to 
Ireland, which he designates as above, in order to 
ascertain, by communion with kindred teachers, the 
very utmost recesses of theology and philosophy.* 

Ordericus Vitalis, in his " Ecclesiastical History f," 
having occasion to mention the Irish, calls them by the 
name of Irenses, equivalent to Iranians, that is, inha- 
bitants of Iran, Iren, or Irin, whichever of them you 
happen to prefer. And as these are now established 
as the basis of our general search, I shall address my- 
self, without further digression, to their syllabic ana- 
lysis. 

To do this the more effectually, and at the same time 
to comprise within one dissertation what otherwise 
might encroach upon two, it is to be noticed that the 
country, known in the present day as Persia, and whi- 
ther our labours will be directed at no distant hour, 
was by its primitive inhabitants called Iran also, and 
spelled as ours, with an initial E. The prefixing of 
this letter, in both instances of its occurrence, whether 
we regard the Eastern or the Western hemisphere, was 
neither the result of chance, nor intended as an opera- 
tive in the import of the term. It was a mere dialectal 
distinction, appertaining to the court-language of the 
dynasty of the times, and, what is astoundingly mira- 
culous, retains the same appellation, with literal pre- 
cision, unimpaired, unadulterated, in both countries, up 
to the moment in which I write. 

* Iren perrexit ut et aliorum Doctorum sententias in philosophicis at- 
que divinis litteris investigator curiosus exquireret. Vita Gilclse, cap, 6. 
f Lib. x. Anno 1098. 



122 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Palahvi* is the appellation of this courtly dialect in 
Persia, and Palahver is the epithet assigned to it in 
Ireland ; and such is the softness and mellifluence of 
its enchanting tones, and its energy also, that to soothe 
care, to excite sensibility, or to stimulate heroism, it 
may properly be designated as " the language of the 
gods." 

Thus we see that Ireland and Persia were both called 
Iran ; that both equally admitted of the change of 
this name to Eiran ; and that the style of this variation 
was similarly characterised in both. How, then, will 
the empyrics of etymology recover their confusion : 
they who would persuade us that Ireland was so de- 
nominated from Iar, the West — unless, indeed, they 
can substitute East for West, and show that Persia was 
denominated from Iar also.j" Entangled in this di- 
lemma, the amiable old General Valiancy, without in- 
timating, however, that it was what extorted his 
remark — after rigidly maintaining, through a series of 
volumes, that the word had its origin in the above ex- 
ploded Western Will o' the Wisp — exclaims, in a sen- 
timent of unconscious self-conviction, that " nothing 
more can be said of this derivation than that the name 
was common to that part of the globe whence they 
(who imported it) originally came.J" 

Arrived, then, at length, at the fountain-head of our 
inquiry, how shall we account for it in " that part of 
the globe whence we originally came ? " I have seen 
but two efforts to develop the word, as applied to that 

* Modern writers upon Persia, who would refine upon the matter, have 
perverted this word to Pehlivi ; but look you into the early numbers of 
the " Asiatic Researches," and there you will find it spelled as above. 

t Besides, to speak accurately, this is not a western country al all, or 
only so relatively to Britain, Gaul, and thai particular line. 

I Collect, dc Reb. llib. vol. iv. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 123 

quarter : one by Professor Heeren, of the Gottingen 
University ; the other by " a learned priest of the 
Parsees," as recorded by Sir John Malcolm, the late 
lamented author of a history of the place itself. And 
as the former of these is rather humorous, and as the 
latter contains in it a small ingredient of truth, it is 
worth while to parade them in the tail of our in- 
spection. 

" Anciently/' says the professor, "they were called 
by the Orientals themselves by the common term of 
Iran, and the inhabitants, inasmuch as they possessed 
fixed habitations and laws, were styled Iranians, in 
opposition to the Turanians, or wandering hordes of 
central Asia*." 

I wonder did the German historian take his cue 
from the conjecture of the Irish lexicographer? It is 
literally marvellous if he did not ; for, by a most unac- 
countable coincidence, while tracing the foundation of 
a name, descriptive of two localities at opposite points 
of this mundane ball, one boldly asserts, and the other 
more than insinuates, that its root is to be found in 
one and the same English word ! — and this, too, when 
those countries were blazing in glory, before three 
words of the English language were broken into train ! 

A difference, however, breaks out amongst those 
partners, which seems to sever the prospects of their 
metallic union. It is, that though each would make 
iron to be the substratum of their respective hobbies, 
yet would my namesake have his so called as abounding 
therein ; whereas the professor, who betrays a re- 
spectable insight into geology, and fearing that the 
womb of Persia could not conceive so hard an ore, 
wishes us, at once, to believe that it acquired its 

* Antiq. Research. Pers. vol. i. p. 137. 



J 24 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

ancient epithet from the fixedness of that metal ; and 
thus would one ex abundantid, and the other ex simi- 
litadine, have the common name of Iran for Ireland 
and for Persia be derived from an English word, which 
was not concocted for many centuries after the decay 
of those two regions, when the very metal it repre- 
sented first grew into use * ! 

" Moullah Feroze, an excellent Palahvi scholar, tells 
me, 1 ' says Sir John Malcolm, " that Iran is the plural of 
Eir, and means the country of believers." And again, 
when he had occasion to consult his oracle, he states 
the answer as follows : — 

" I gave this inscription 1[ to Moullah Feroze, a 
learned priest of the Parsees, at Bombay, and he 
assured me that the translation of De Sacy was cor- 
rect. Ferose explained the word An-Iran to mean 
unbelievers. Eer, he informed me was a Pehlivi 
word, which signified believer ; Eer an was its plural : 
in Pehlivi, the a or an prefixed, is a privative, as in 
Greek or Sanscrit; and consequently, An-Eeran meant 
unbelievers. The king of Eeran and An-Eeran he in- 

* If I have taken a wrong view of the Professor's phraseology, Fshall 
feel most happy to be set right ; but I submit to the critic whether. I am 
not justified in understanding him as I do. 

•I- To be met with at a place called Tauk-e-Bostan. Silvestre de 
Sacy, a member of the Institute at Paris, bad made the following 
translation of it, which is divided into two parts. 

The first :— " This figure is that of a worshipper of Hormuzd, or God ; 
the excellent Shahpoor ; king of kings : of Iran and An-Iran ; a celestial 
germ of a heavenly race ; the son of the adorer of God ; the excellent 
Hormuzd; a king of kings ; of Iran and An-Iran; a celestial germ of 
a heavenly race ; grandson of the excellent Narscs ; king of kings/' 

The second : — " This figure is that of a worshipper of Hormuzd, or 
God ; the excellent Varaham ; king of kings ; king of Iran and An-Iran ; 
a celestial germ of a heavenly race ; son of the adorer of God : the excel- 
lent Shapoor; king of kings: of Iran and An-Iran ; a celestial germ of 
a heavenly race : grandson of the excellent Hormuzd ; king of kings." 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 125 

terpreted to mean king of believers and unbelievers ; of 
Persia and other nations. It was, he said, a title 
like king of the world. This, however," adds Sir 
John, of himself, " is like all conjectures founded on 
etymology, very uncertain." 

It was natural enough that Sir John should ex- 
press himself slightingly as to a mode of proof, the 
principle of which he must have seen violated in so 
many instances ; and, independently of this, it is an 
infirmity in human nature to affect disregard for any 
knowledge which we do not ourselves understand. I 
do not mean, however, to vindicate Feroze's interpre- 
tation ; on the contrary, I purpose to show that it is 
not only imperfect, but incorrect ; yet while doing so, 
I am bound to acknowledge, that, if he has not hit 
off the whole truth, he has a part of it ; and even this 
is such a treat, in the wilderness through which we 
have been groping for some time back, that I welcome 
it as an oasis, and offer him my thanks thus before- 
hand. 

To prove, however, that he is in error, I need but 
confine myself to the unravelling of his own words. 
At first he affirms that Eeran is the plural of Eer, and 
means the country of believers ; if so, the singular 
must mean the country of a believer ; but he tells us 
afterwards, that Eer signifies a believer alone, conse- 
quently Eeran must believers alone, without any con- 
sideration of the word country. And the same in- 
consistency, which manifests itself here, applies with 
equal strictness to An-Eiran also. 

Should these papers ever reach the observance of 
this distinguished foreigner, whom I appreciate even 
for his approximation to the precincts of the thought, 
they will, I doubt not, readily disabuse him of a radical 



12G THE ROUND TOWERS. 

misconception. Eeran is not a 'plural at all, but a 
compound word : its constituents being Eer and An *, 
of which the former signifies Sacred and the latter a 
Territory. So that the united import will be the 
Sacred Territory ; and An- Eeran, of course, is but its 
negative. 

This exposition I gain from the Irish language, 
which I take to be the primitive Iranian or Persic 
language. By it I am furthermore enabled to inform 
the German " professor" that Turan, though now in- 
habited by " Nomad tribes," obtained not its name from 
that circumstance, but from a widely different one. 
Tur f means prolific, whether as regards population or 
rural produce ; and An, as before, a territory — the 
whole betokening a prolific territory %. And he should 
remember, what he is not at all unconscious of, that 
eastern denominations are not varied by recent occu- 
pants, but continue in uninterrupted succession, from 
age to age, as imposed at the outset. 

* This An, the original name for country, was modified afterwards, 
according to clime and dialect, into tan, as in Aqui-tott-ia, Brit-fon-ia, 
Mauri-/ara-ia, &c. ; and into stan, as in Curdi-stan, Fardi-s/un, Hindu- 
stan, &c. 

+ From this was formed the English word tower, the very idea re- 
maining unchanged. — As was also the English word bud, meaning the 
first shoot of a plant, a germ, from the Irish budh, i. e., the organ of 
male energy. 

I The present hlcak and sterile aspect of this region militates nothing 
against this view, when we consider the thousand alterations which it 
has undergone, under the thousand different tribes that have consecu- 
tively possessed it. 



127 



CHAPTER X. 

Thus far have Ireland and Persia kept company- 
together, both equally rejoicing in the common name 
of Iran. But now, when we descend to particulars, 
this harmony separates. Ireland being an island, sur- 
rounded on all sides by water — which Persia is not — 
it was necessary it should obtain a denomination 
expressive of this accident ; or, at all events, when 
the alteration was so easily formed as by the change 
of the final an into in — an meaning land, and in 
isla?id — the transition was so natural as at once to 
recommend its propriety. 

Hence it is that though we occasionally meet with 
Iran, as applied to this country, yet do we more fre- 
quently find Irin as its distinctive term ; whereas the 
latter is never, by any chance, assigned to Persia, the 
former alone being its universal name. And this is 
all conformable to the closest logical argumentation, 
which teaches that every species is contained in its 
genus, but that no genus is contained in its species ; 
Irin, therefore, which is the specific term, may also 
be called Iran the generic, while Iran — except as in 
our instance, where the extension of both is identical, 
could never be called Irin : and so it happens that 
Ireland is indifferently called by the names of Iran 
or Irin, the latter alone marking its insular character- 
istic ; whereas Persia, pot being so circumstanced, is 
mentioned only by the general form of Iran. 



128 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

To simplify this reasoning I must repeat that Iran * 
signifies the SacredLa?ul, and Irhv\, the Sacred Island; 
now every island is a land, but every land is not an 
island : Persia, therefore, which is not an island, could 
not be called Irin, whereas Ireland, which is, may as 
well be called one as the other J. 

Irin, then, is the true, appropriate, characteristic and 
specific denomination belonging to this island : — and 
the words Ire, Eri, Ere J, and Erin, applied also 
thereto, are but vicious or dialectal modifications of 
this grand, original, and ramifying root. 

The import of this appellative having spread itself 
over the globe before Rome was ever known, under 
that name, as a city, and when Greece was but just 
beginning to peep into the light, the Pelasgi — who 
were partly Budhists, allied somewhat to them in 
religion, and still more akin in birth and endowments 
— conveyed, in conjunction with the Phcenician mer- 
chants, to the early Greek inhabitants § ; and they, 
by a very easy process, commuted Irin to Ierne, which 
is but a translation of the word — Isoog, signifying 
sacred, and vr^og an island. 

Of this Greek form, Ierne, there were again various 
inflections and depraved assimilations, such as Iernis, 
Iuernia, Ouvernia, Vernia, &c. And from one j| of 
those, the Latins, without, perhaps, exactly knowing 

* From Ir or Eer, sacred, and an a land. 

•!• From Ir or Eer, sacred, and in an island. 

% Iran or Irin, i. c., Eeran or Ecrin. 

;j; Each of these three preceding words means" religion ox revelatvm. 
And from them Era, denoting' a period o/timc- which with the ancients 
was a sacred reckoning — has heen so denominated ; as well as Eric, which, 
in law phraseology, indicates a certain penalty attachable to certain 
crimes, and equivalent to Deodand, or a religious restitutioti — all Irish. 

§ I mean the " Grceei vetustissimi," not the " Grtreuli csurientes." 

|| Namely, hernia : — u, v, and b are commutable. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 129 

what it meant, conjured up Hibernia, but which, how- 
ever, with soul-stirring triumph, retains uninjured our 
original root — the initial H being nothing more than 
the aspirate of the Greek Upog, sacred; vr\og, island, 
remaining unaltered ; and the letter h only interposed 
for sound-sake *. 

So that, whether we consider it as Irin, Ienie, or 
Hibernia, or under the multiplied variations which di- 
verge, almost interminably, from those three originals, 
in the several languages which they respectively re- 
present, they will be found, each and all, to resolve 
themselves into this one, great, incontrovertible position 
of the " Sacred Island." 

Thus, under heaven, have I been made the humble 
instrument of redeeming my country from the asper- 
sions of calumniators. I have shown to demonstration 
the real origin of its sanctified renown. I have traced 
from the Irish, through all the variations of Greek 
and Lati?i capricios, its delineator*/ name ; and have 
proved, beyond the possibility of rational contradic- 
tion, that in all those different changes regard was 
still held to the original epithet. 

Where, then, are the sneers — of " hallucination," 
— of " lunacy," — and of " etymological moonshine?" 
These are very cheap and convenient terms for gen- 
tlemen to adopt, as cloaks to their ignorance of the 
purport of denominations imposed at a time when 
every word was a history. In the early ages of 
the world whimsicality never mingled with the cir- 

* Should you hesitate as to this mode of accounting for the letter b, 
I can show you that the Greeks spelled Albion indifferently with or with- 
out a b ; as they indifferently used b or v in one of the above names for 
Ireland ; for instance — 

EustatK ad Dion. Perieg. 
K 



i 30 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

cumstantial designation of either person or locality. 
Every name was the sober consequence of deliberate 
circumspection ; and was intended to transmit the 
memory of events, in the truest colours, as well as in 
the most comprehensive form, to the latest generation. 
Will this be considered the vapouring of conceit ? 
Is it the spouting of self-sufficient inanity ? Let 
the heartless utilitarian, unable to appreciate the 
motives which first enlisted me in this inquiry, and 
which still fascinate my zeal, at an age when, — did not 
my love for truth and the rectification of my country's 
history rise superior to the mortification of alienated 
honour, — I should have flung from me letters and lite- 
rature in disgust, and betaken myself, an adventurer 
for distinction as a soldier — let such, I say conceal 
within himself his despicable worldly-mindedness, and 
leave me unmolested, if unrewarded, to posterity. 

" Come, thou, my friend, my genius, come along, 
Thou master of the poet and the song, 
And while the muse now stoops, or now ascends, 
To man's low passions, or his glorious ends, 
Teach me, like thee, in various nature wise, 
To fall with dignity — with temper rise ; 
Formed by thy converse happily to steer 
From grave to gay, from lively to severe; 
Correct with spirit, eloquent with ease ; 
Intent to reason, or polite to please." 



The origin of the term " Sacred Island," being now 
for ever adjudicated, the reader will at once see that 
it belonged to an era long anterior to Christianity. In 
assigning to it this date *, I pretend not to be unique ; 
and, as I should not wish to deprive any brow of the 

* It is only the date, however, that I will share with any one. The 
derivation of the word, and its true exposition, are exclusively my own. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 131 

laurels which it has earned — -more especially, where 
an undisputed enjoyment has amounted to prescrip- 
tion, — I shall register, in express words, my prede- 
cessor's own expose, which is, that " the isle must 
have been so named because of its nurturing no ve- 
nomous reptile* " /.' / Who will not smile 1 

No, sir, the imposers of this name were too sensible 
of its value, and too jealous of its use, to expose it to 
ambiguity. It pourtrayed the sanctity of the occu- 
pying proprietors ; and lest there should be any mis- 
conception as to the species of worship whence that 
" sanctity " had emanated, they gave this scene of its 
exercise three other names, viz. Fuodhla, Fudh Inis, 
and Inis-na-Bhfiodhbhadh j" — which at once associate 
the " worship" with the profession of the worshippers : 
fory, or ph, being only the aspirate of b, and com- 
mutable with it, Fuodhla — which is compounded of 
Fuodh and ila, this latter signifying land — becomes 
Buodhla — that is, Budhland J. Fudh Inis, by the 
same rule, is reducible to Budh Inis, of which the 
latter means island, that is, Budh-island § ; while Inis- 
ndi-Bhfiodhbhadh requires no transposition, being clear 
and obvious in itself, as the Island of Budhism. 

Now, " to make assurance doubly sure," go to 
" Keating's History of Ireland," p. 49, and you will 
there find " the female deities," — an incorrect expres- 
sion for the deities worshipped by the females — of 

* " Quod nomen ob beati solum ingenium, in quo nullum animal, ve- 
nenosum vitale, facile assentior attributum." Ogyg. part i. c. 21. So 
gratifying, however, has this been to the obsequious wisdom of subse- 
quent historians (?), as to be echoed from one to the other with the most 
commendable fidelity. " O imitatores, servum pecus /"' 

f Pronounced Fiodhvadh— copied literally from the old manuscripts. 

% This corresponds to Ir-an, the Sacred Land. 

§ This answers to Ir-in, the Sacred Island. 

K 2 



132 THE .HOUND TOWERS. 

the Tuath-de-danaans, to have been Badhha, Maeha, 
and Moriagan.* Of these the first needs no exposition ; 
the second I shall reserve for another place, but the 
third I will here develope. He was the military deity 
of this " sacred" colony, and a personification of 
Budh, under the designation of Farraghf, i. e. Copu- 
lation ; and, accordingly, the Scythians, who incor- 
porated with them, after first dethroning them, adopted 
this term as their exhilarating war-shout, while under 
the veil of the epithet was really meant the sun, 
whose aid they invoked to give strength to their loins 
and vigour to their arms £. 

And yet this is the name which Spenser would 
derive from that of Fergus king of Scotland ! Fifteen 
hundred years and more before Fergus was born, 
which, by the way, was not until the sixth century 
of the Christian era, the Irish basked in the sun- 
shine of their resplendent war-god, who, under an- 
other and equivalent denomination — namely Buodh, 
abbreviated into Boo §, and thus with the prefix 
a, implying to, or under the auspices of — assumed 
by the different septs as their distinctive watch- 
words, branched out into the national and spirit- 

* The reader will see that, in quoting Dr. Keating, I do so from no 
respect for his discrimination or sagacity. Whenever he has attempted 
to exert either, in the way of comment or deduction, he has invariably 
erred : fortunately he has offered none in this instance. Yet is his hook 
a most valuable compilation : and / now cull out of it those three names, 
as one would a casket of jewels from a lumber-room. 

t This Farragh, otherwise Phearragh, is the Peor of the Scriptures, 
and the Priapus of the Greeks. 

■j:" Priapus, si physice consideretur idem estac sol ; ejusque lux primo- 
{i'cnia unde vis omnis seminatrix." Diod. Sic. lib. i. See also Numb. xxv. 
V6V.4., where you will see that " Peor" remotely meant the sun. 

§ I shall not trouble myself in reciting the absurd attempts that have 
been heretofore made to expound this word : it is enough to sa\ that 
hey w'-re all wrong. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 133 

Stirring acclamations of O'Brien a-Boo * ! O Neil 
a-Boo ! &c. &c. ; which the early English settlers, who 
would fain become Hibernis 'qjsis Hiberniores, after- 
wards imitated: such as Butler a-Boo; Shanet-a- 
Boo ; Grasagh a-Boo ; Crom a-Boo, &c. ; the last 
having been that adopted by Fitzgerald, duke of Lein- 
ster, and still retained as the motto of his armorial 
escutcheon. 

It is worth while to listen to Spenser's gratulation, 
while chuckling himself with the idea of his fancied 
discovery : " This observation of yours," he says to 
himself, " is very good and delightful, far beyond the 
blind conceits of some, who upon the same word Far- 
ragh have made a very blunt conjecture." Ohpatriaf 
Oh mores ! how little is known of Ireland ! But I am 
not surprised at foreigners, when the very natives, the 
descendants of the actors in those glorious scenes, are 
ignorant of its history ! 

Take up any document, purporting to give an 
account of this country, and you will find it to be com- 
posed, either of absurd and nauseous exaggerations on 
the one hand, or of gross and calumnious detractions on 
the other. But though the wildness of the former 
cannot fail to generate, in the intellectual amongst all 
readers, an unfavourable impression ; and in those of a 
different nation, already prejudiced, or mayhap inca- 
pable of separating the gold from the baser metal, in- 
credulity and contempt ; yet the true Irish searcher, 
versed in the antiquities, not only of his own dear 
" father-land," but of the kindred East, which main- 
tained in the old world a religious and incessant com- 

* The motto, also, of this family, viz. Lamh laider a-Boo ; i. e. " The 
strong arm from Boo," now changed to Vigueurdu dessus, is in keeping 
•with the same idea. 



134 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

munication with this <l Sacred Isle," will glean in the 
distortion of those maniac effusions, the glimmerings 
of that truth whence they originally emanated — while 
the injustice of the calumniators must, of itself, bring 
dismay, with the whole train of confusion and dis- 
honour, upon the mercenary instruments of those foul 
abuses, as well as upon the heartless abettors who 
could have enlisted their vassalage ! 

Truth, notwithstanding, obliges me to say that the 
blame should not altogether be laid upon the his- 
torians. They did as much as, under the circum- 
stances, could be expected at their hands. Two suc- 
cessive invasions having passed over, and swept away, 
in the whirlwind of their desolating fury, all those 
monuments of learning to which the world had bowed 
just before — one from innate antipathy to the thing 
itself; the other from apprehension that the contents 
of those memorials, acting upon the sensibilities of a 
high-hearted and proud race, should stimulate their 
ardour to the recovery of their lost rights, and the 
consequent ejectment of the party who had usurped 
them* — the patriot had little more to guide him in 
supplying the deficiencies thus created, than the rude 
imaginings of his own brain, or the oral traditions of 
the village schoolmaster and genealogist. 

The rigour, however, of penal observances began, in 
time, gradually to relax ; and the people ventured to 
confess that they had still in their possession such 
things as manuscripts , illustrative of their lineage and 
ancestral elevation. This was the signal to some liberal 

* This is the mere utterance of an historical transaction, without refer- 
ence to sect, creed, party, or politics. No feelings of bitterness mingle 
therein. The author disclaims all such, as much as he would deprecate 

them in others. 



THE BOUND TOWERS. 135 

individuals to prosecute an inquiry for additional me- 
morials; and the result was, that they rose from the 
pursuit, if not with a connected aggregate of demonstra- 
tional evidence, at least with a conviction on their minds, 
that those treasured visions of primeval lustre, here- 
ditary and inborn within the breast of every Irishman, 
and impossible to be eradicated, were not yet, late as 
was the hour, without something like a basis to rest 
upon. 

I would be unjust did I not furthermore avow, that 
it was not their enemies alone that waged this unge- 
nerous warfare with the literature of the Irish. St. 
Patrick himself was the individual who, in pursuance, 
as he conceived, of his apostolic charge, may be said 
to have perpetrated the greatest outrage upon our an- 
tiquities; having set fire, in a paroxysm of pious zeal, 
to no less than one hundred and eighty volumes, which 
he selected from the great mass of the records of the 
nation, as embodying the tenets of Budhism and As- 
trology. The rest, relating to the notification of 
national or personal achievements, he left untouched 
and secure. 

Yet, will it be believed that this was the severest 
infliction, so far as letters are concerned, which we 
have sustained, after all ? For as the religion of the 
ancient Irish was intermingled with their history, and 
as the wide diffusion of their celebrity arose from the 
eminence of their religious creed, the flames of that 
conflagration have inflicted a loss upon the antiquarian 
which fifteen centuries of study have not been able to 
repair ! 

Despite, however, the united inroads of suspicion 
and mistaken piety, the Irish have still materials, 
ample and authentic, for the completion of a history, 



136 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

not only of insular, but, if properly handled, of almost 
universal elucidation * : and of this Toland himself 
was, in some measure, aware, when he said that " not- 
withstanding the long state of barbarity in which that 
nation hath lain, and after all the rebellions and wars 
with which the kingdom has been harassed, they (the 
Irish) have {incomparably more ancient materials of 
that kind for their history, to which even their mytho- 
logy is not unserviceable, than either the English, or 
the French, or any other European nation with whose 
ancient manuscripts I have any acquaintance." 

But though resources most unquestionable thus 
notoriously still abounded, yet has it not been the for- 
tune of Ireland, hitherto, to meet with any historian 
gifted with the widely comprehensive, philosophical 

* In the Library of Trinity College, Dublin are several such, collected 
in the beginning of last century, by Lhuyd, author of the " Archse- 
ologia," and restored by Sir John Seabright, at the instigation of 
Edmund Burke. I am credibly informed also, that there have been 
lately discovered in the Library at Copenhagen certain documents re- 
lating to our antiquities, taken away by the Danes, after their memor- 
able defeat at Clontarf, by King Brian, A. D. 1014. Lombard has 
already asserted the same ; and that the King of Denmark entreated 
Queen Elizabeth to send him some Irishman, who could transcribe them ; 
that Donatus O'Daly, a learned antiquarian, was selected for the pur- 
pose, but that his appointment was afterwards countermanded, for poli- 
tical reasons. 

There are, besides, in mostly all the public libraries of Europe — with- 
out adverting to those which are detained in the Tower of London — 
divers Irish manuscripts, presented by the various emigrants, who from 
time to time have been obliged to liy their country, to seek anions 
strangers that shelter which they were denied at home : taking with them, 
as religious heirlooms, those hereditary relics of their pedigree and race. 

One of the most beautiful and pathetic pieces of Irish poetry remaining, 
written by Macleog, private secretary to Brian, after the demise of that 
monarch, and beginning with this expression of his sorrow: " Oh ! Cen- 
COradh (the name of his patron's favourite palace), where is Brian?" was 
picked up in the Netherlands, in I 650, by Fergar O'Gara, au Augustinian 
friar, who lied from Ireland in the iron dava of Cromwell. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. J 37 

views and suitable education calculated to do her jus- 
tice : so that, by the untoward hand of fate, and the 
iniquitous operation of the old political stroke, the 
knowledge of the character in which those papers are 
couched has become already so almost extinct, that 
they lie on the shelves, to all intents and purposes a 
dead letter*. 

I now beg leave to introduce this identical war-god 7 
in his military costume and hyperborean philebeg, 
in which, as before observed, the Scythians never in- 
vested themselves ; and hope the reader will enjoy a 
hearty laugh at the expense of those blunderers, who, 
in their preposterous, 1 had almost said repentant, de- 
votion to monastic refinements, would rob the Pagans 
of this long-cherished idol, and convert his godship 
into a Christian nonentity ! 

You will find him — name and all corresponding — 
described fully in the " Rites and Ceremonies of all 
Nations," as similarly officiating and worshipped in the 
East. " There is," says the author, " in the province 
of Matambo, an idol whose priests are sorcerers or ma- 
gicians ; and this image stands upright, directly over 
against the temple dedicated to his peculiar service, in 
a basket made in the form of a bee-hive^." 

* I rejoice to state, that the present Administration, under the henign 
direction of our patriot King, have resolved, so far as in them lies, to 
atone for former depredators. There is now a vigorous revisal of those 
documents going on, with a view, as I understand, to their immediate 
publication. 

+ The antiquarian luminaries of the Royal Irish Academy would fain 
make out that this was a Christian warrior. Their high priest has 
lately proclaimed the fact, in their " collective wisdom." It is astonishing 
how fond they have suddenly become for the memory of the monks ; they 
would now father every thing like culture in the country upon them. It 
used not to have been so ! 



138 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



"To this deity in particular they apply themselves 
for success when they go out a hunting or fishing, and 
for the relief of all such as are indisposed* ! Miramba 

* This ima^e was found under the root of a tree dug up in Roscom- 
mon. It is about the size of the drawing; is made of brass, once «il(. 
the gilding, however, now almost worn off; and maj be seen in the Museum 
of Trinity College, Dublin. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 139 

always marches at the head of their armies ; and he is 
presented with the first delicious morsel, and the first 
glass of wine that is served up at the governor's or 
king of Matambo's table." 

But a living traveller, in a very interesting work just 
launched from the press, and without expecting therein 
to become my auxiliary, decides this ascription without 
further pains. " This village," says our author (near 
Rampore, on the Himalaya range), " instanced the care 
which the sacerdotal orders in the East take for their 
comfort and good. It was a neat, clean, and substan- 
tial place, in all acceptations of the word. These 
Brahmin villagers pay no rent of any kind to the state : 
they live on the granted lands, but are obliged to keep 
the temples in repair, to furnish all the implements, 
and to take care of the godships within it — these are 
small brass images, with nether garments in the shape 
of petticoats. They are carried in procession, on cer- 
tain occasions, and the ceremonies belonging to them 
are performed twice a-day. Mahadeo is the great god 
of the mountains *." 

But if the advocates of modernism have cause to be 
annoyed at my depriving them of this specimen of 
" the Fine Arts in Ireland," which they thought they 
had appropriated to the prejudice of truth, how much 
greater must not be their chagrin at my wrenching 
from their grasp another (i exceedingly curious" and 
" richly-ornamented" " ecclesiastic j" ?" Ecclesiastic, 
indeed ! Yes ; but reverenced and revered, by many a 
beating heart, as the head of all ecclesiastics, for cen- 
turies upon centuries, before the name of monachism, 
as connected with Christianity, was ever articulated ! 

* Major Archer's Travels in Upper India, vol. i. pp. 383, 384. Lond. 1833. 
+ So the " collective wisdom," in the true spirit of Christian resti- 
tution and penitential contrition, have lately pronounced him ! It is 



140 



THE KOUiVD TOWERS. 




delightful to see this solicitous zeal with which, when it suits a private 
purpose, they cherish the memory of the monks, being no lunger in the 
way of their secular perquisites: but if the poor monks could speak, 
or send a voice from the tomb, it would be to say that they did not 
choose to be encumbered with such meretricious flattery : and that, 
having laid no claim to those relics, or to the foiccrs which they decorated, 
during their lifetime, they now in death musl repudiate the ascription. 
" Timeo Danaas et dona ferentes," would lie their answer. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 141 

This, Sir, is no less a personage than Mr. Budha him- 
self, or rather the personified abstract, in the possession 
of one of the last queens of the Tuath-de-danaans, at 
the moment of the inundation of the Scythian dynasty. 
I hope that, after so long an obscuration, and the un- 
courtly treatment he has received during the humi- 
liating interval of revolving centuries, you will — now 
that he chooses to reveal his proper character, avow 
his delegation, and acknowledge the supremacy of 
that power by which his empire had been overthrown, 
— treat him as an Irishman, with generous cordiality, 
and impute not to him a crime which belonged only 
to his followers. 

But his dress is like a Christian. So much the 
better, man : we ought to like him the more for that. 
But to be serious, — although, as my friend Horace for- 
merly told me, " what hinders one laughing from 
speaking truth ?" — all our ecclesiastical ritual, as well 
of ceremony as of costume, has been borrowed from the 
Jewish, and that again from the Pagans, with such 
alterations only as the allwise Jehovah thought neces- 
sary to recommend. Besides, we have the authority 
of Dr. Buchanan for stating that " Samona is a title 
bestowed on the priests of Godama (Budha), and is 
likewise applied to the images of the divinity, when re- 
presented, as he commonly is, in the priestly habit 



* " 



* Asiatic Researches, vol. vi. ; where it will he observed that the 
Doctor was not writing for me. He did not "even suspect the existence 
of this figure. It is, like the preceding one, of bronze. 



142 



CHAPTER XI. 

PHARAOH*, the titular appellation of the monarchs of 
Egypt, being but the local modification of this our 
Irish Phearagh, the mind is instinctively directed to- 
wards that great storehouse of bygone consequence. 
And as the best authority that we can command in 
gaining any insight into its reverses is through the 
medium of its own historians, let us hear what Ma- 
netho, a priest of the country, thus transmits : — 

" We had formerly," says he, " a king named Ti- 
maeus, in whose reign, I know not why, but it pleased 
God to visit us with a blast of his displeasure ; when, 
on a sudden, there came upon this country a large 
body of obscure people from the East, and with great 
boldness invaded the land, and took it without oppo- 
sition. Their behaviour to the natives was very bar- 
barous ; for they slaughtered the men, and made slaves 
of their wives and children. The whole body of 
this people were called Hulcsos, or Uksos ; that is, 
Royal Shepherds : for the first syllable, in the sacred 

* The Egyptian sovereign assumed this title, as the highest that lan- 
guage and imagination could bestow. It signifies literally the act of 
copulation, of which it would represent him as presiding genius — the 
source whence all pleasure and happiness can How — and is but faintly re- 
echoed in the Macedo-Syriac regal epithet of Eoipyirtn, " Benefactor," 
or even that by which we designate our king as the fountain of goodness. 
There being no such letter as p/i in the ancient alphabets, all those words 
— viz. Pheor, Pharaoh, and Pharagh — should proper]} be spelled Feor, 
Faraoh, and Faragh. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 143 

dialect, signifies a ' king,' as the latter, in the popular 
language, signifies ' a shepherd.' These two com- 
pounded together constitute the word Huksos. These 
people are said to have been Arabians." 

The Vedas, or Sanscrit records of Hindustan, fur- 
thermore state that these invaders were the " Pali," 
or shepherds, a powerful, warlike, and enterprising 
Indian tribe. While the deadly aversion which 
existed in the minds of the Egyptians against the 
name and office of a shepherd in Joseph's day, is a 
lasting memorial of their visit and their severity *. 

They did not go, however, without leaving behind 
them other signs. The pages of Herodotus afford 
ample evidence of the resemblance between the Egyp- 
tian customs and those of the more remote East. By 
his description of the rites and ceremonies, the mode 
of life, &c, of the priests of Egypt, they are at once 
identified with the Brahmins of India. China still 
celebrates that festival of lamps which was formerly 
universal throughout the extent of Egypt f ; and " we 
have the most indubitable authority for stating that 
the sepoys in the British overland army from India, 
when they beheld in Egypt the ruins of Dendera, pro- 
strated themselves before the remains of the ancient 
temples, and offered up adoration to them ; declaring, 
upon being asked the reason of this strange conduct, 

* Gen. xlvi. 34. 

t " On the fifteenth day of the first month every year. Every person 
is obliged, on the evening of that day, to set out a lantern before his 
door, and these are of various sizes and prices, according to the different 
circumstances of those to whom they belong. During this festival, they 
have all sorts of entertainments, such as plays, balls, assemblies, music, 
dancing, and the lanterns are filled with a vast number of wax candles, 
and surrounded with bonfires." 



144 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

that they saw sculptured before them the Gods of their 
country *." 

But the most stupendous and appalling memento of 
their dominion and science was the three great pyra- 
mids of Geeza, the erection of which, Herodotus 
assures us, (B. ii. § 128), though the priests would 
attribute to Cheops, Cephrenes, and Mycerinus, three 
Egyptian kings, " yet the people ascribed them to a 
shepherd named Philitis, who at that time fed his cattle 
in those places;" so consonant withrthe invasion above 
authenticated. This is additionally confirmed by the 
Sanscrit records already referred to, informing us of 
three mountains, Rucm-adri, " the Mount of Gold," 
Rajat-adri, " the Mount of Silver," and Retu-adri, 
" the Mount of Gems ;" having been raised by that 
Indian colony who had conquered Egypt ; which is 
only a figurative denotation of those factitious heights, 
those astounding monuments of religion and ostenta- 
tion, which were originally cased with yellow, white, 
and spotted marbles, brought from the quarries of 
Arabia, until stripped by the rapacity of succeeding 
colonies. 

Belzoni's testimony is decisive on this point, as his 
drawing of the second pyramid represents the upper 
part of its casing remaining still entire, about a third 
of the distance from the summit to the base down- 
wards. We meet with other pyramids, it is true, 
chiefly dispersed about the Libyan deserts, but they 
are much inferior to the fore-mentioned three, except 
one near the mummies, whose dimensions and struc- 
ture are very nearly the same with the largest Gezite 

* Barker. — The same is mentioned by Captain Burr, in reference to 
the Indian followers who had attended him to the temple of Isis. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 145 

one. This latter, according to Greaves, is 693 feet 
square at the base ; its perpendicular height 499 feet ; 
that is, 62 feet higher than St. Peter's at Rome, and 
155 feet higher than St. Paul's in London ; while the 
inclining height is 693 feet, exactly equal to the 
breadth of the base ; so that the angles and base make 
an equilateral triangle *. Belzoni measures them all 
differently, and gives to the second even greater 
dimensions than are usually assigned to the first or 
largest ; viz., base, 684 ; perpendicular height, 456 ; 
central line down front, from apex to base, 568 ; coat- 
ing, from top to where it ends, 140. 

The variation arises from the circumstance of the 
latter gentleman's measurement having been taken 
after the base had been cleared away of all sand and 
rubbish ; while those of his predecessors applied only 
as taken from the level of the surrounding heap. The 
small ones above noticed are some quadrilateral, some 
round, terminating like a sugar-loaf, some rising with 
a greater and some with a lesser inclination. All 
commence immediately south of Cairo, but on the 
opposite side of the Nile, and extend, in an unin- 
terrupted range, for many miles in a southerly direc- 
tion, parallel with the banks of the river. 

After what has been said above, I need scarcely 
allude to the ridiculous supposition of those having 
been built by Joseph as granaries for his corn ! Their 
form and construction, ill adapted to such an occasion, 
refutes that absurdity, as it does the derivation upon 
which it has been founded ; viz., the Greek words 

* Mr. Greaves's diagonal, in proportion to his base of 694 feet, is 991 
feet nearly ; the half of which is 495-4 feet, for the height of the Pyramid; 
for as the radius is to the tangent of 45°, so is half the diameter to half 
the diagonal, or as 7 to 10,or 706tol000. Say, 7 : 10 :: 694 : ^|i = 495|, 
— Dissertation upon the Pyramids. 

L 



14G THE ROUND TOWERS. 

TTupog, wheat, and ap.ua), I gather ; as if, forsooth, an 
Egyptian structure, erected before the Greek language 
was ever known to exist, should wait for a designation 
until Greece should be pleased to christen it. Still 
more disposed must one be to discard with contempt 
the usual derivation given them, of 7ruo, fire ; as this 
not only labours under the weakness of the former, 
but betrays an ignorance of the correct idea of the 
Greek word wuqyos, of which xvp, fire, is the true 
derivation, " quia flammae instar in acittwn tendit * ;" 
intimating its continually tapering until it ends in a 
point; whereas the top of the Egyptian pyramids 
never does so end ; that of the largest above described 
ending in a flat of nine stones, besides two wanting at 
the angles, each side of this platform being about 
sixteen feet ; so that a considerable number of people 
may stand on it, and have, as from most of ours, one 
of the most beautiful prospects imaginable. 

Wilkins's derivation from pouro, a king, and misi, 
a race, would seem plausible enough, being a purely 
Coptic or Egyptian analysis ; but when we consider 
the general ascription of them by the people to the 
shepherd Philitis, whether as one of the Pali, — that is, 
shepherds — or Uksi, which meant the same, — king- 
shepherds above adduced ; or as emphatically the 
shepherd, the son of Israel f, it argues a disposition 
on the part of the people to assign the honour — if 
taken in the latter light — to the workmen employed ; 
if in the former, to a prince of a different dynasty from 
those whom the Egyptian priests would fain associate 
with them. This derivation, therefore, will not stand ; 
and we have only to betake ourselves to the ingenious 

* Nrhm.il. t Gen. xlvii. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 147 

conjecture of Lacroze *, which, perhaps, may give 
more satisfaction respecting the etymology of the word 
pyramid. Lacroze derives it from the Sanscrit term 
Biroumas, and traces an analogy between Brahma, 
Birma, (which the Indians of Malabar pronounce 
Biroumas,) and the word Piromis, which means the 
same thing, namely, a virtuous and upright character 
— Piromia meaning, according to him, in the language 
of Ceylon, man in general. 

Herodotus states ^, that the priests of Egypt kept 
in a spacious building large images of wood, repre- 
senting all their preceding high priests, arranged in 
genealogical order, every high priest placing his image 
there during his life. They mentioned to Hecatseus, 
the historian, when they were showing this edifice to 
him, that each of the images he saw represented a 
Piromis, begotten by another Piromis, which word, 
says Herodotus, signifies, in their language, a virtuous 
and honest man. A passage from Synesius, the cele- 
brated bishop of Cyrene, in his treatise " on Provi- 
dence/' at once coincides with, and is illustrative of, 
this anecdote. " The father of Osiris and Typhon," 
says he, " was at the same time a king, a priest, and 
a philosopher. The Egyptian histories also rank him 
among the gods ; for the Egyptians are disposed to 
believe that many divinities reigned in their country 
in succession before it was governed by men, and be- 
fore their kings were reckoned in a genealogical order 
by Peirom after Peirom." 

The Japanese celebrate an annual festival in honour 
of one Peirun, who, they say, was many ages ago 
king of Formosa, and who, being disgusted with the 



* Hist. Christ, des Indes, p. 429. 
t Lib. ii. p. 4. 



L 2 



148 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

abandoned morals of his subjects — wealthy traders 
— consigned himself solely to the worship of the 
gods. Forewarned in a dreanx, he took flight from 
the impending visitation, and had scarcely sailed ere 
the island, with its inhabitants, sunk to the bottom of 
the sea. As for the good king, he arrived safe in 
China, whence he went over to Japan, where he has 
been ever since honoured by the above commemora- 
tion. 

The true Coptic name for those edifices, is Pire 
monc — which signifies a sunbeam * — not so much in 
allusion to their form, as to their appropriation, which 
we shall make the subject of a separate inquiry. 

It has, I trust, satisfactorily been proved that the 
erection and nomination of those wondrous edifices 
were not of native growth. It has, I trust, additionally 
appeared that both were essentially Indian. It may 
not now be " ungermane to the matter," if we would 
for a moment digress, to consider the era of their 
probable date, as introductory to the character of 
their probable destination. 

Josephus expressly informs us, that the Israelites 
were employed in the construction of the pyramids. Is 
there any reason why we should doubt so respectable 
an authority ? Oh ! yes, it is said the Scriptures are 
against it, — the task of the Israelites during their 
bondage being exclusively confined to the making of 
brick. I deny that the Scriptures either allege or 
insinuate any such thing. On the contrary, we may 
fairly infer, from Exod. ix. 8, 10, that they were en- 
gaged in other servile offices ; as also from Psalm 
lxxxi. 6, where it is said, " I removed his shoulder 

* *«?, generally rendered fire, is not so, however, in the true import of 
the word, but the Sun : fire is only a secondary sense of it. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 149 

from the burden, and his hands were delivered from 
the mortar-box" — not pots, as our translation has it; 
and such rendering is supported by the Septuagint, 
Vulgate, Symmachus, and others *. 

This ascription receives further countenance from a 
passage in Diodorus, i. 1, where, referring to those 
immense piles, and the ideas of the Egyptians them- 
selves respecting them, he adds, " they say the first 
was erected by Armseus, the second by Amosis, the 
third by Inaron." Who is it that pronounces the last 
two names, if only spelled, aMosis and inAron, and 
recollects, at the same time, what the Scriptures tell 
us of Moses and Aaron, that is not at once struck with 
the similarity of the sound ? And as to Armaeus, why 
it bears so evident an affinity with Arameeus or Ara- 
mean, that one cannot avoid connecting it with the 
" Aramite ready to perish," the very name given to 
Jacob, Deut. xxvi. 5 f. Nothing, then, prevents, so 
far as I can see, our concluding one, of those structures 
at least — I say one at least, to conciliate the brick- 
party ; and I think, besides, I have read somewhere, 
that one of the pyramids, the smaller ones no doubt, 
was built of such material — to have been the work of 
the sons of Israel. And the rather as it was consonant 
with the uniform practice of the ancient Oriental na- 
tions to employ captive foreigners on servile and labo- 
rious works. 

The usual time, too, assigned to the slavery of the 
Israelites corresponds very nearly with that generally 
allotted to the erection of those masses. The stay of 
the sons of Israel in the land of Egypt is generally 
understood to have been two hundred and fifteen 
years — of these Joseph ruled seventy — forty is a fair 

* Barker. t Ibid. 



150 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

average for the generation that, succeeded — which, 
added to his seventy, leaves one hundred and five 
years to the Exodus. Now, we learn from Herodotus, 
that Cheops, the reputed founder of the first or greatest 
of these pyramids, was the first also of the Egyptian 
kings who oppressed, or in any way tyrannized over, 
his subjects. His reign is stated to have been fifty 
years. Cephrenes, who succeeded, showed himself in 
every respect his brother, barring, as the other before 
him, the approach to every temple, stopping the per- 
formance of the usual sacrifices, and keeping his 
subjects all the while employed in every species of 
oppressive task and laborious drudgery. The period 
of his reign is stated to have been fifty-six years, 
which, added to the preceding fifty, make one hundred 
and six, exactly answering to the above calculation. 

The Exodus, besides, is stated to have occurred B.C. 
1791 ; and Herodotus and Diodorus together, while 
acknowledging their ignorance of the actual date of 
the pyramids, and the impossibility, on their part, to 
ascertain it, declare also their conviction, that they 
must have been built at least about that period. 

I have thus, I trust, done honourable justice to the 
testimony of Josephus. I have done so for many rea- 
sons : firstly, because of the importance of the subject 
itself; secondly, from nry respect for the merits of the 
writer; and, thirdly, because that I think it very pro- 
bable indeed, that the Israelites may have been occu- 
pied in the erection of some of the minor and later 
pyramids. But insuperable obstacles stand in the way 
of our associating them with the structure of them all ; 
and of these one is, the improbability that the victo- 
rious invaders would single out the inoffensive Israel- 
ites as particular objects of their oppression, when 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 151 

policy should suggest to them a directly different 
course in securing their adherence in opposition to 
the native residents. By Josephus's account, however, 
it would appear that the Israelites alone were engaged 
upon those edifices ; and the Scriptures themselves 
confine the intimation of drudgery to the Israelitish 
race : it therefore is manifest that the Egyptian natives 
were favoured by the then existing dynasty, while it is 
on all hands agreed, that the new comers had treated, 
during the whole period of their dominion, the entire 
Egyptian nation with indiscriminate rigour and chas- 
tisement. 

Besides this, that deadly animosity existing in the 
Egyptian mind to the name and profession of shep- 
herds, above alluded to, at once identifies their 
character with that of the " Uksi," or " King-shep- 
herds," to whom we have before referred, and proves 
the date of their invasion anterior in point of time to 
Israel's introduction into the land of Egypt. Joseph 
was well aware of the particulars of this invasion, and 
of the sting it left behind it in the mind of the Egyp- 
tians ; and accordingly he acquaints his brothers, 
whose " trade also had been about cattle," that 
" every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyp- 
tians *." 

Manetho himself, the Egyptian priest, is my voucher 
for this deduction, when he says, that " After these — 
the shepherd-kings — came another set of people, who 
were sojourners in Egypt, in the reign of Amenophis. 
These chose themselves a leader, one who was a priest 
of Heliopolis, and whose name was Osarsiph ; and 
after he had listed himself with this body of men, he 
changed his name to Moses." 

* Gen. xlvi. 34. 



152 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

But this, it will be said, is at variance with Moses' 
own account, which states that he obtained his name 
on being rescued from a watery cradle by Pharaoh's 
daughter. Not in the least, I reply ; for it is more than 
probable that, after his slaying the Egyptian, and con- 
sequent flight, he dropped this name to ensure conceal- 
ment, and only resumed it on being invested with his 
divine commission. Or, what is more likely still, and, 
perhaps, the truth, that Osarsiph was the name which 
his " mother " had given him, and which adhered to 
him until " he grew up," — a term in Scripture which 
expresses mature age, — until when it was not that the 
princess had designated him as Moses. 

Strong, too, as my veneration is for Josephus, I 
cannot conceal either from myself or from the reader, 
that his testimony in this instance is rather of a du- 
bious character. The idea of interpolation I altoge- 
ther waive — it is, at all times, a contemptible subter- 
fuge. I will take for granted that the text is genuine ; 
and, on the very face of it, it bears the impress — in 
the first place, of inaccuracy, confounding the period 
of his countrymen's servitude with that of their actual 
sojourn in Egypt ; and, in the second place, of indis- 
tinctness, attaching a term of obloquy to those edifices, 
without condescending to offer therefor any cause. 
Here are his own words : — " When time had oblite- 
rated the benefits of Joseph, and the kingdom of 
Egypt had passed into another family, they inhu- 
manely treated the Israelites, and wore them down in 
various labours : for they ordered them to divert the 
course of the river (Nile) into many ditches, and to 
build walls, and raise mounds, by which to confine 
the inundations of the river (Nile) ; and, moreover, 
vexed our nation in constructing foolish pyramids, 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 153 

forced them to learn various arts, and inured them to 
undergo great labours ; and after this manner did 
they, for four hundred years, endure bondage ; the 
Egyptians doing that to destroy the Israelites by 
overmuch labour, whilst we ourselves endeavoured to 
struggle against all our difficulties." 

Now, it is not a little remarkable, as connecting the 
erection of the pyramids with the " royal shepherd 
race," the former occupants of the above fertile ter- 
ritory, that those immense edifices happen to be situ- 
ated in the very vicinity of Goshen. Geeza, where 
the three great ones stand, is universally allowed to 
have been the site whereon Memphis once stood ; and 
as a west wind took away the locusts, and cast them 
into the Red Sea (Exodus x. 19), Goshen, which we 
find, by Genesis xlv. 10, cannot have been far from 
Joseph's own residence, will be more aptly fixed in 
the vicinity of this spot, within the Heliopolitan nome, 
than within any other nome or praefecture, particularly 
the Tanitic, " where the same wind," as has been 
justly remarked by Dr. Shaw, " would not have 
blown those insects into the Red Sea, but into the 
Mediterranean, or else into the land of the Philistines." 
Goshen, then, was that part of " the land of Rameses/' 
" the best of the land," (Gen. xlvii. 6 — 11,) which lay 
in the neighbourhood of Cairo, but on the opposite 
side of the Nile, where, as already observed, the 
pyramids are first met with, and whence they proceed 
in a continued line along the banks of the river, in a 
southerly direction, for many miles together. 

After reading these details, it will be impossible, I 
conceive, for any dispassionate mind to remain longer 
in suspense as to the origin of the pyramids. The 
doubt, too, and obscurity in which they have been 



154 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

heretofore enveloped can be explained with similar 
ease, if we but remember the execration in which their 
Cushite founders were held by the Egyptians, and 
their consequent disinclination to associate their name 
with such splendid memorials. With this view, in- 
deed, it is not at all improbable but that active legis- 
lative measures were adopted to cancel and suppress 
every vestige of proof which could tend to perpetuate 
the memory of the obnoxious erectors. So that we 
must not wonder if, after a lapse of years, their history 
was as great a riddle to the Egyptians themselves as 
that of our pyramids is to the Irish nation. 

A collateral cause for this universal ignorance of their 
use and origin was the probable absence of letters on 
the part of the Egyptians, until now, for the first time, 
introduced by those learned Arabians ; and though 
any one who is acquainted with the oriental disquisi- 
tions of Wilfrid, and the coincidences he establishes 
between the ancient history of Egypt and the account 
given of the customs and dynasties of that kingdom, 
as drawn from the Hindoo Puranas, w r ill at once 
admit that " there must have been a period when a 
Hindoo power had reigned in Egypt by right of con- 
quest," and established therein the peculiar rites of 
their religion, with the elements of literature and 
social civilisation, yet is it probable that, during their 
sojourn, which, we have seen, was a continued series 
of warfare, they kept themselves aloof from all inter- 
course with the natives, and checked, as much as 
possible, the circulation of their science among them. 
Some sparks of it, however, must inevitably have 
transpired ; and the Egyptian intellect was too finely 
constituted to be insensible to its value, or allow it to 
extinguish without food ; so that, in the time of 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 155 

Moses, and long after, their learning and accomplish- 
ments were courted by the philosophers of the day, 
and were so eminently conspicuous, as to become a 
proverb, (Acts Apost. vii. 22.) Homer, we all know, 
visited that favoured land — so did Pythagoras — so 
did Solon, Thales, Plato, and Eudoxus ; — in short, all 
the sages of antiquity, of whom we read so much, and 
whom we peruse with such recuperative pleasure, 
either finished their education in that favoured school, 
or conversed with those who had themselves done so. 

The Egyptians are said to have been the first who 
brought the " rules of government," with the art of 
making " life easy" and " a people happy," — the true 
end of worldly politics— to a regular system. But 
much as they excelled other nations in scientific lore, 
in nothing was their superiority so conspicuous as in 
that magic art which enabled them to cope, for so long 
a time, and under such trying varieties, even with the 
prophet and ambassador of God himself. 

These exhibitions are too stubbornly authenticated 
by scriptural proofs, as well in the Old as in the New 
Testament *, for any one to affect disbelief in them 
without at the same time disbelieving the authenticity 
of the Scriptures themselves. Yes, I implicitly sub- 
scribe to the truth of the narration ; and as I mean to 
bring home their initiation in the art, as well as in 
their other several accomplishments, to the Chaldean 
diviners, or Aire Coti shepherds — a branch of the 
Tuath-de-danaan colonists of this our western isle — 
from whom, or their relatives, under the designation 
of Uksi, Indo-Scythse, or Cushite shepherds — who, if 
not all one and the same, were at least mixed and incor- 

* Exod. vii. 11, &c, and 2 Tim. iii. 8. 



156 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

porated — the Egyptians had imbibed it — this, I trust, 
will plead my excuse for obtruding its notice here, as 
well as for dilating so much at large upon the early 
history of Egypt*. 

* America also has had her ancient pageantry. Antonio de Solis 
gives the following description of the Mexican shrine : — " The site of 
that temple devoted to the worship of the Sun, and its altar for human 
sacrifices, was a large square environed hy walls, cloisters, and gates ; 
in the centre was raised a high tower of a pyramidical form, hroad at the 
hase, and narrowed towards the top, having four equal sides in a sloping 
direction ; in one of which was a flight of one hundred and fifty steps to 
the top, covered with the finest marble, with a square marble pavement, 
guarded with a balustrade : in the centre stood a large black stone, in 
manner of an altar, placed near the idol. In the front of this tower, 
and at a convenient distance from its base, stood a high altar of solid 
masonry, ascended by thirty steps : in the middle of it was placed a 
large stone, on which they slaughtered the numerous human victims 
devoted for sacrifice ; the outside being set with stakes and bars, on 
which were fixed human sculls." 



157 



CHAPTER XII. 

I come now, with the same view, to consider the 
destination of their famous " Pyramids*." In this 
pursuit the first thing that strikes us is the uniform 
precision and systematic design apparent in their 
architecture. They all have their sides accurately 
adapted to the four cardinal points, as the four aper- 
tures near the summit of most of ours indicate a 
similar regard to fidelity to the compass. In six of 
them which have been opened, the principal passage 
preserves the same inclination of 26° to the horizon, 
being directed towards the polar star. And I doubt not, 
were the ground within and around all of ours suffi- 
ciently explored, there would be found, in some at 
least, regular vistas to correspond with this de- 
scription. Their obliquity too being so adjusted as 
to make the north side coincide with the obliquity of 
the sun's rays at the summer's solstice, has, combined 
with the former particulars, led some to suppose they 

* The regular pyramid is a section of the cube, whose altitude is equal 
to half the diameter of the base, and is contained within a semicircle. 
The great pyramid is not of this precise order ; its height or altitude 
being found more than half the diameter of its base. A second order is 
that whose altitude is equal to half the diagonal of the base, and is 
also bounded and contained within a semicircle ; and consequently, 
if the diagonal be given at 1000, the altitude will be 500 : but the true 
height of the Egyptian Pyramid being determined at less than half its 
diagonal, is therefore found to be not exactly of this order, but nearly 
approaching to it, and probably aimed at in the original design, though 
failing in the execution. — Dissertation upon the Pyramids. 



158 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

were solely intended for astronomical uses ; and cer- 
tainly, if not altogether true, it bespeaks, at all events, 
an intimate acquaintance with astronomical rules*', 
as well as a due regard to the principles of geometry \. 
No one, I believe, has ever questioned the latter 
fact. Some, induced thereby, have thought them to 
be erected for the purpose of establishing the exact 
measure of the cubit ; of which they happen to con- 
tain both in breadth and height a certain number of 
multiples. But as they were evidently constructed 
by persons well versed in all the niceties of exact 
measurement, and who consequently had no occasion 
for such colossal reference to refresh their memories, 
like the Lancasterian apparatus, it is ridiculous to 
suppose them erected with this view, nor should I 
have alluded to it but to expose its weakness. Others 
have fancied them intended for sepulchres ; and as 

* Astronomy began very early to be cultivated among the Egyptians ; and 
to them is attributed the discovery of the magnitude of the solar year, or, 
as it is distinguished, the Egyptian year of 365 days; which discovery 
appears to be noticeable, and memorialized in the construction of their 
Great Pyramid. The ancient measure of length being the cubit, and that 
measure being determined common with the Hebrews and Egyptians, as 
nearly as Dr. Cumberland could determine it, and reduced to English 
measure, a certain standard is obtained : but we find also another, called 
the longer cubit, to have obtained, on which we may with equal propriety 
calculate the measures of the Egyptian Pyramid, on which to infer the 
number of days contained in the solar year ; the measures of the base of 
the Great Pyramid being found, if not exactly, yet nearly approximating 
to it. — Dissertation upon the Pyramids. 

t I have not the least doubt but the ancient Egyptians measured by 
the cubit, whatever it then was; that the number of cubits was de- 
signedly fixed upon by them in laying the base of the Pyramid : and 
that if we divide the ascertained sum of 752 feet by 2, the quotient will 
be 376, which is a number exceeding 365 by 1 1 : consequently, it' we 
estimate their ancient cubit at 2 feet T ' 5 of an inch, that measure will 
be ascertained, and found to approximate nearly to the longer Hebrew 
cubit; and so will the measures of the Pyramid be found to agree with 
the number of days in the solar year. — Dissertation upon the Pyramids. 






THE ROUND TOWERS. 159 

the Egyptians, taught by their ancient Chaldean victors, 
connected astronomy with their funereal and religious 
ceremonies, they seem not in this to be far astray, if 
we but extend the application to their sacred bulls 
and other animals, and not merely to their kings, as 
Herodotus would have us suppose. 

The immense sarcophagus lying in the interior of 
the first or Great Pyramid, with the bone found by 
the Earl of Munster * in the second, must put this 
question beyond the possibility of doubt; as Sir 
Everard Home, after a laborious examination of the 
properties of this relic, found it accurately to agree 
with the lower extremity of the thigh-bone of an ox, 
while it corresponded with that of no other animal. 

In conformity with this conclusion were the dis- 
coveries of Belzoni, some time before, in Upper Egypt, 
which abounds in specimens of the most splendid 
antiquities, in a catacomb amongst which, called 
Biban el Moluk," that is " the gates of the king"— 
meaning thereby the universal king of the ancients, the 
generating principle of vegetation and life, of which 
Apis and Mnevis, Osiris and Typhon, were but the 
representatives among the Egyptians, as other 
nations had adopted equivalent forms and names, 
according to the genius of their climes and languages 
— I mean the Sun — well, in one of the numerous 
chambers of this catacomb, Belzoni discovered an ex- 
quisitely beautiful sarcophagus of alabaster, nine feet 
five inches long, by three feet nine inches wide, and 
two feet and an inch high, covered within and without 
with hieroglyphics, and figures in intaglio, nearly in 
a perfect state, sounding like a bell, and as transpa- 
rent as glass : from the extraordinary magnificence of 

* Then Major Fitzclarence, March 2nd, 1818. 



160 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

which, he conceives, it must have been the depository 
of the remains of Apis ; in which idea he is the 
more confirmed by having found the carcass of a bull 
embalmed with asphaltum, in the innermost chamber. 

The passage in Herodotus, to which I before re- 
ferred, appears to throw some light on the intricate 
subject which we are now pursuing. In lib. ii. 
p. 124, &c. " the father of historians" tells us that the 
two kings, who succeeded each other on the throne of 
Egypt, after the happy reign of Rhampsinitus and his 
predecessors, and to whom the building of those pyra- 
ramids was reputedly ascribed, had shown themselves 
indeed brothers, not more by affinity of blood than by 
the similar outlines of their cruelty and intolerance. 
No species of oppression was by them left unattempted; 
no extreme of rigour or rapacious plunder by them 
unenforced : but what peculiarly characterized the 
hardship of their tyranny was the restraint they put 
upon the religion and pious exercises of their subjects ; 
closing the portals of the temples where they were 
wont to adore, and preventing the oblation of their 
usual sacrifices. 

Though Herodotus has been justly honoured with 
the designation of " Father of Historians,"' he has also, 
perhaps, not so very justly been called " the Father 
of Errors ;" and, as he himself admitted his incapability 
of obtaining any satisfactory insight into the original 
of those structures, may we not fairly conclude that, 
in the extract now cited, he either confounds those 
princes with the foreign dynasty which we have al- 
ready established, or else, from the ignorance superin- 
duced to obliterate their memory, mistakes the erection 
of some of the minor and later ones, which this " par 
nobile fratrum " may, indeed, have devised, in imitation 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 1 6 L 

of the three " mountains " built by the Uksi. What he 
states, however, is of value, as it points to a previous 
form of worship, and a system of government by an 
alien house. The prohibition of sacrifices, and the 
closing- the temple doors, make this as clear as words 
can delineate any thing. All we want, then, is to be 
informed what the particular temples, alluded to, were : 
and that they were the pyramids, will, I think, be con- 
ceded by every one, who has carefully perused the 
arguments here set down, and who has not his judg- 
ment warped by favourite plans of literary systems and 
speculative hypotheses. 

This conclusion receives additional force from the 
conversation which Wilford, in his " Dissertation upon 
Egypt and the Nile*," tells us he had with several learned 
Brahmins, when, upon describing to them the form 
and bearings of the great Egyptian pyramid, one of 
them asked if it had not a communication under ground 
with the river Cali? Being answered that such com- 
munication was spoken of as having once existed, and 
that a well was still to be seen, they unanimously 
agreed that it was a temple appropriated to the worship 
of Padma-devi, and that the supposed tomb was a 
trough, which, on certain festivals, her priests used to 
fill with the sacred water and lotos-flowers. 

Mr. Davison, British Consul to Algiers, when 
accompanying Mr. Wortley Montague to Egypt, in 
1763, discovered here a chamber, before unnoticed, 
and descended, to a depth of 1 55 feet, the three succes- 
sive reservoirs. The principal oblique passage has, 
since then, been traced by the very enterprising master 
of a merchant vessel, Captain Caviglia, 200 feet far 1 

* Asiatic Researches. 

M 



J 62 THE ROUND TOWERS, 

ther down than by any former explorer, and found to 
communicate with the bottom of the well, which is 
now filled with rubbish. A circulation of air being 
thus procured, he was emboldened to proceed 28 feet 
farther, which brought him to a spacious hall, 66 feet 
by 27,, unequal in altitude, and directly under the 
centre of the pyramid. In no instance yet recorded 
has any appearance presented itself of human remains 
within those apartments, nor indeed was there any 
possibility of conveying such thither, unless placed 
there before the erection of the pile itself; for the 
extremities of the gallery, which leads into the great 
chamber, are so narrow and circumscribed, that it is 
with difficulty one can effect an entrance into it, even by 
creeping upon his belly. 

The symbolical anatomy prefigured in this con- 
trivance, and which equally exhibits itself in all the 
temples of the ancients, as well under as over ground, 
is such as almost to have tempted me to make this the 
occasion on which I should uncover another secret of 
their mystic code. But a more concentrated oppor- 
tunity will occur as we advance, and for which this 
intimation will answer as a prelude ; meanwhile, I 
would have the reader soberly to bethink himself, what 
possible use could dead bodies have of wells of water? 
Is not such the type, as it is also the accompaniment, of 
life and activity ? And does not this, of itself, subvert 
the absurdity of those temples having been erected as 
mere mausoleums for kings? 

I have already hinted my confident belief that if 
the ground all, within, and around our pyramids were 
sufficiently examined, there would not be wanting indi- 
cations of subterraneous passages. I am the more 
confirmed in this my belief from the appearances that 



THE HOUND TOWERS. 163 

presented themselves on the demolition of that at 
Downpatrick, in 1790, " to make room for the rebuild- 
ing of that part of the old cathedral next which it 
stood, and from which it was distant about 40 feet. 
When the tower was thrown down," continues Dubour- 
dieu, in his " Statistical Survey" of the count}^ " and 
cleared away to the foundation, another foundation 
was discovered under it, and running directly across 
the site of the tower, which appeared to be a con- 
tinuation of the church wall, which, at some period 
prior to the building of the tower, seemed to have ex- 
tended considerably beyond it." With great defer- 
ence, however, to the authority of so respectable a 
writer, I hesitate not to proclaim that the second foun- 
dation so discovered was not a iS continuation of the 
church wall," but the remnant of some pagan structure, 
appertaining to the tower itself — in fact a Vihar, or 
college for its priests — or else the vestige of some 
larger temple, and connected therewith, previously 
existing on the same locality. 

That this announcement is correct will be apparent, 
from the superiority of masonic skill exhibited in this 
foundation, as well as in its having been upon a 
larger scale and ampler dimensions than what the 
Christian " Cathedral " had ever occupied ; " in the 
walls of which," says my authority, " there are many 
pieces of cut stone that have evidently been used in 
some former building. The same circumstance may 
also be observed in several of the ruined churches at 
Clonmacnoise* " 

Nor ought this relict of an ancient pagan edifice to 
excite our surprise, when we are told that the temple 

* Scientific Tourist through Ireland, p. 33. 

M 2 



164 



THE ROUXD TOWERS. 



of the " Syrian goddess," which existed in the days of 
Lucian, was not that which was originally erected by 
Deucalion, but one built many ages after, on the same 
site, by Attis, Bacchus, or Semiramis. 

With the church, therefore, or other Christian edi- 
fice, this " foundation " had no relation. St. Patrick 
was the first who erected one in that vicinity, to which 
he gave the name of Sgibol Phadruig, or Patrick's 
Granary ; having been built on the identical spot on 
which Dichu, son of Trichem, of the tribe of the Dal- 
fiatachs, and lord of the territory of Lecale, had a 
granary constructed to preserve his corn, before that 
his gratitude for the saint, by whom he was just con- 
verted, induced him to consecrate the place where 
that event occurred, by raising thereon a house to the 
God of nature and of harvests. 

Its situation, be it observed, was " two miles from 
the city of Down*;" different, therefore, from that of 
the cathedral, as was also its form : having been built 
from north to south, at the solicitation of Dichu him- 
self, agreeably to the plan of the former store-house. 

This took place in 433-4 ; and though, for conces- 
sion sake, I may admit, — what yet is far from being my 
conviction, — that some of our Round Towers may have 
been erected subsequently to the Christian era, yet 
positive I must be that no one of them was after the 
successful mission of the Apostle of Ireland ; and the 
explosion of the doctrines with which even the most 
modern of them may happen to be associated, — while 
the majority, and the real ones, I shall prove, belong 
to an infinitely earlier date. 

As a further inducement to explore for cavities be- 

* Usher's Primord. c. xvii. p. 846. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 1 65 

neatb, and connected with, our Round Towers, I beg 
leave to bring" under review what Maundrel relates of 
two Round Pillars, which he met with in his journey 
from Aleppo to Jerusalem, on the sea-coast, a little to 
the south of Aradus, in the neighbourhood of Tripoli. 
He describes one of them as thirty-three feet high, 
composed of a pedestal, ten high and fifteen square, 
surmounted with a tall cylindrical stone, and capped 
with another in the form of a 'pyramid. The second 
was not quite so high — thirty feet two inches — its 
pedestal, which was supported by four lions, rudely 
carved at each corner, was in height six feet, being 
sixteen feet six inches square ; the superstructure 
upon which was one single stone cut in the shape of 
a hemisphere. Each of these pillars, of which he 
gives accurate drawings, has under it several cata- 
combs or sepulchral chambers, the entrances to which 
lie on the south side. He pronounces a third which 
he met with, as " a very ancient structure, and pro- 
bably a place of sepulchre # ." 

With the opinion of this judicious traveller I alto- 
gether concur, provided only, as said before, in refer- 
ence to the pyramids, that the application be extended 
to the sacred bulls and crocodiles, serpents, dragons, 
and heifers, with the whole train of bestial divinities, 
which both Indians and Egyptians, and all the other 
polished nations of antiquity, thought proper to adopt 
as objects of their regard, and treat with the ho- 
mage — though only commemorative, as they will tell 
you — of the One Great Supreme "j*. 

* Journal, pp. 21, 23. 

f Neither can I, with him, restrict their object to Tombs alone; their 
Phallic shape bespeaks another allusion ; as does the style of archi- 
tecture indicate an affinity of descent, though not an identity of design 
with that of our Towers. 



166 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

This extension of the use will at once afford a 
solution of the otherwise unaccountable and unneces- 
sary size of those cavities, and is further supported by 
Savary's remark, made on occasion of his searching for 
the Egyptian Labyrinth, viz., that " amidst the ruins of 
the towns of Caroun, the attention is particularly fixed 
by several narrow, low, and very long cells, which 
seem to have had no other use than that of containing 
the bodies of the sacred crocodiles • these remains can 
only correspond with the labyrinth." While Hero- 
dotus's declaration, of his not being allowed to enter 
its vaults, on the score of their " containing within 
them the bodies of the fifteen kings, together with the 
sacred crocodiles," should afford it a determination no 
longer liable to doubt. 

Archer, also, when mentioning a very ancient 
Hindoo temple, at the south end of the fort of 
Gualior, resembling in shape those on the Coromandel 
coast, and decorated with much carving, says that 
" there was a subterranean communication with the 
plain at the north end, but the passage has been so 
long neglected as to be impassable." 

Am I not justified, therefore, in the conviction, from 
what I have already intimated, as to the complicated 
design of those sacred piles, that our Round Towers 
would be found similarly furnished with subterranean 
chambers ? I do respectfully urge that such is my 
firm belief, and that it would be well worth the while 
of the learned community to investigate the accuracy 
of the surmise here put forward. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 167 



CHAPTER XIII. 

Another characteristic, to which I would fain attract 
the reader's regard, is the circumstance of their being- 
erected in the vicinity of water. At Glendalough, 
what a magnificent lake salutes the Tower ? In 
Devenish and at Killmalloch, is not the same the 
case ? In other parts of the country, also, we find 
them similarly located. And even where nature has 
not been so lavish of her inland seas, yet is water, of 
some shape, always to be seen contiguous to our 
towers. 

What use, it will be asked, do I mean to make of 
this argument ? or how seek support from the acci- 
dental propinquity of this element ? Remember my 
remark upon the article, before, in connexion with the 
Egyptian Pyramids. Captain Mignan, besides, tells us 
that a tradition, handed down from time immemorial, 
says that " near the foot of the ruin of El Mujelle- 
bah," which he takes to be that of the Tower of Babel, 
" is a well, invisible to mortals ;" and, as all Eastern 
heathenism, whence ours was deduced, partook in 
some degree of the same usages and properties, I 
think it very probable the correspondence will apply 
in this as well as in other peculiarities ; and the 
rather as from symptoms of vaults, which have al- 
ready appeared, and the hollow sounds, or echoes, 
which invariably accompany, the proposition does not 



168 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

come unwarranted, however singly put forth, or with- 
out something like argument to recommend its trial. 

We know that in Hieropolis, or the " Holy city," in 
Syria, where a Temple, with a Tower, was erected to 
Astarte, there stood adjacent a lake, were sacred fishes 
were preserved, in the midst of which was a stone 
altar, which was said, and really appeared, to float ; 
whither numbers of persons used to swim every day 
to perform their devotions. Under this temple they 
showed the cleft where it was said the waters drained 
off after Deucalion's flood, and this tradition brought 
on the extraordinary ceremony now about to be nar- 
rated, something similar to which our ancestors must 
formerly have practised here. 

" I have,"' says Lucian * " myself seen this chasm, 
and it is a very small one, under the temple. Whether 
it was formerly larger and since lessened I cannot 
tell, but that which I have seen is small. In com- 
memoration of this history they act in this manner: 
twice in every year water is brought from the sea to 
the temple, and not by the priests only, but by all 
Syria and Arabia. Many come from the Euphrates 
to the sea, and all carry water, which they first pour 
out in the temple, and afterwards it sinks into the 
chasm, which though small, receives a prodigious 
quantity of water, and when they do so, thev say, 
Deucalion instituted the ceremony as a memorial of 
the calamity above named, and of his deliverance from 
it." 

Twice a year a man went up to the top of the 
Priap, and there remained seven days. His mode of 
getting up was thus : — He surrounded it and himself 
with ;i chain, and ascended by the help of that and 

' In his treatise " Do Dea Svria.' 



THE ROUND TOM'EllS. 



169 



certain pegs, which stuck out of its sides for the pur- 
pose, lifting the chain up after him at each resting 
interval — a method of ascent which will be readily 
understood by those who have seen men climb up the 
palm trees of Egypt and Arabia. Having reached 
the summit he let down the chain, and by means 
thereof drew up all necessaries in the way of food, 
and withal prepared himself a seat, or rather nest 
on his aerial tabernacle. 




View him now mounted on his sacred tower, 
He looks around with conscious sense of power. 

On these occasions crowds used to come with offer- 
ings, and the custom was for each to declare his 
name to the priests ; upon which one below cried 
it out to him on the top, who thereupon muttered a 
prayer, which, in order to arrest the attention of the 
congregation, and enliven their devotion, he all the 
while accompanied by striking a bell. 



170 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

One way of their sacrificing was as shocking as 
it would be otherwise ridiculous. They crowned 
victims with garlands, then drove them out of the 
temple-court, on one side whereof was an abrupt 
steep, where falling they thereby perished. Nay, 
some tied up their very children in sacks, and then 
shoved them down, reproaching them as wild beasts, 
miserably to perish. 

This whole proceeding, only under a mythological 
garb, was in direct harmony with the directions given 
and the practice pursued by God's own people. The 
man ascending to the top of the tower had a parallel 
in that declaration of the Lord recorded in Exodus 
xxiv. 1, 2, 3, viz,, " And he said unto Moses, come 
up unto the Lord, thou, and Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu, 
and seventy of the elders of Israel, and worship ye 
afar off. And Moses alone shall come near the Lord ; 
but they shall not come nigh, neither shall the people 
go up with him. And Moses came and told the 
people all the words of the Lord, and all the judg- 
ments ; and all the people answered with one voice, 
and said, ' All the words which the Lord hath said, 
will we do*.' " 

His staying there seven days corresponded with 
Levit. viii. 33, 34, 35 — " And ye shall not go out 
of the door of the tabernacle of the congregation 
in seven days, until the days of your consecration be 
at an end: for seven days shall ye consecrate you. 
As he hath done this day, so the Lord hath com- 
manded to do, to make an atonement for you. There- 

* Of this distant adoration we may still see traces in the practice of 
the Irish peasantry, almost preferring to say their prayers outside the 
precincts of the chapel, or mass-house, than within it, unconsciously 
derived from this service of the Afrion, or benediction-house, i.e., the 
Round Towers. 



THE HOUND TOWERS. 171 

fore shall ye abide at the door of the tabernacle of 
the congregation day and night seven days, and keep 
the charge of the Lord, that ye die not ; for so I am 
commanded." And again, Ezekiel xliii. 25 — " Seven 
days shalt thou prepare every day a goat for a sin- 
offering : they shall also prepare a young bullock and 
a ram out of the flock ; without blemish. Seven days 
shall they purge the altar, and purify it; and they 
shall consecrate themselves." 

The enrolment of their names was also sanctioned 
by divine command, as Exodus xxviii. 29 — " And 
Aaron shall bear the names of the children of Israel 
in the breastplate of judgment upon his heart, when 
he goeth in unto the holy place, for a memorial before 
the Lord continually." Whilst the ringing of the bell 
is particularly enforced by a triple repetition, Exodus 
xxviii. 33, 34 — " And beneath upon the hem of it 
thou shalt make pomegranates of blue, and of purple, 
and of scarlet, round about the hem thereof; and 
bells of gold between them round about. A golden dell 
and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, 
upon the hem of the robe round about." 

This last-cited text is of the most inconceivable 
advantage in the development of the subject which 
we thus pursue. The most superficial must have 
noticed how that, in the tracing of this analooy 
between the ceremonies of the Gentiles and the 
Hebrews, I have studiously guarded against its ap- 
pearing an imitation, on the part of the former, from 
the ritual of the latter. The priority in point of date 
will certainly appear on the Gentile side. Mean- 
while, ere other links of conformity crowd upon our 
path, it will be well to take heed to the frequency of 
the word pomegranate, as occurring in the Scriptures. 



172 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

It has already appeared that one of the names of the 
Syrian goddess, in whose honour the Hieropolitan 
Priaps were erected, was Rimmon. This epithet you 
have had before expounded as expressive of that 
fruit ; and as we see that, both in the Jewish and the 
Pagan formulae, it occupied so prominent a position *, 
it must occasion you no surprise if, by and by, I dis- 
cover it amongst the mouldings j" of our consecrated 
and venerable Round Towers. 

As to their devotions at the lake, and the propin- 
quity of the lake itself to the temple, it is in direct 
similitude to the " molten sea," mentioned 1 Kings viii. 
23, 24, 25, 26, " the brim whereof was wrought like 
the brim of a cup, with flowers of lilies," &c. ; — while 
the cruel and shocking sacrifice with which the whole 
terminated, was the exact respondent of the Mosaical 
scape-goat J. 

Let it not be wondered at, therefore, if on the sum- 
mit of one of our Round Towers are to be found 
the traces of the apparatus for a bell. For indepen- 
dently of what Walsh and others inform us of, viz., 
that the Irish — enjoying tranquillity and repose after 
the expulsion of the Ostmen, and so recalling their 
attention to the cultivation of Christianity, after their 
release from that scourge — converted those structures 
of exploded paganism, to the only obvious use to 



* The Ghabrcs to this day chew a leaf of it in their mouths, while 
performing their religious duties round the sacred fire. 

+ Those are what Montmorency would fain make out to have been 
roses imported from the Vatican. 

I A similar sacrifice is described by Major Archer as still practised in 
the mountains of Upper India, which he himself witnessed. " An un- 
fortunate goat," says he, " lean and emaciated, was brought as an 
offering to the deities ; but so poor in flesh was he thai no crow would 
have waited his death in hopes of a meal from his carcass." 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 173 

which they could then be made subservient, namely, 
that of belfries, for the summoning together of the 
people to public worship, some remnants of which it 
is but natural may yet remain — independently, I say, 
of this, have I not here shown that bells entered essen- 
tially into the code of the Pagan ceremonial, from 
whence it. is more than probable, nay, a downright 
certainty, that the first Christian ecclesiastics adopted 
the use, as the Mahomedans, in their minarets, did so 
likewise *. 

The instance to which I have referred in an early 
part of this volume, of astonishment created in the 
English minds, on their first beholding one of those 
implements, was that of Gildas, who, having finished 
his education at Armagh, and returned to Britain 
about the year 508, was engaged by Cadoc, abbot of 
the church of Mancarban, to superintend the studies 
of his pupils during his absence for a twelvemonth. 
Having done so most successfully, and without accept- 
ing of any remuneration for his labour, we find, in an 

* " Round the tee or umbrella at the top (of the Dagobs at Ceylon) are 
suspended a number of small bells, which with these form tees of a great 
quantity of smaller pagodas that surround the quatine, being set in 
motion by the wind, keep up a constant tinkling, but not unpleasing 
sound." — Coleman. 

The temples of Budh in the Burmese empire are also pyramidical, 
the top always crowned with a gilt umbrella of iron filagree, hung round 
with bells. — " The tee or umbrella is to be seen on every sacred building 
that is of a spiral form ; the rising and consecration of this last and in- 
dispensable appendage, is an act of high religious solemnity, and a 
season of festivity and relaxation. The present king bestowed the tee 
that covers Shoemadoo : it was made at the capital. Many of the prin- 
cipal nobility came down from Ummerapoora to be present at the cere- 
mony of its elevation. The circumference of the tie is fifty-six feet ; it 
rests on an iron axis, fixed in the building, and is further secured by 
large chains strongly rivetted to the spire. Round the lower rim of the 
tee are appended a number of bells, which agitated by the wind make a 
continual jingling." — Svmes. 



174 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

ancient life of Cadoc, in the Tinmouth MS., Lam- 
beth observe that " Cadoc, returning to his monastery, 
found Gildas a noble scholar, with a very beautiful 
little bell, which he brought with him from Ireland." 

Those bells, then, we may be sure, appertained 
exclusively to the service of the Round Towers*. 
Having none of these in England, of course they had 
no bells, and hence the surprise manifested on the 
above occasion. In Ireland, too, they must have been, 
now, comparatively obsolete f. And hence we find, 
according to Primate Usher, that their (restored) use 
was not general in the churches here before the latter 
end of the seventh century ; while another writer 
assures us that it was not until the ninth century 
that large ones were invented for the purpose of 
suspension J. 

The shape of the Irish pagan bells was precisely 

* " It is remarked that in China they have no Pyramids, but Pagodas, 
raised by galleries, one above another, to the top : the most celebrated 
of these is that called the Porcelain Tower in Nankin, said to be two 
hundred feet high, and forty feet at the base, built in an octagonal form. 
These Pagodas seem to have been designed for altars of incense, raised 
to their aerial deities, with which to appease them ; and their hanging 
bells, with their tintillations to drive aioay the demons, lest they should, 
by noxious and malignant winds and tempests, disturb their serene atmo- 
sphere, and afflict their country." — Dissertation upon the Pyramids. 

t The reason of this will appear hereafter ; while in the interim I 
must observe tbat this new appropriation of them to Christian purposes 
was what occasioned that error on the part of a writer, some centuries 
after, who opined that it was Sanctus Patricias who first presented one 
to Sancto Kierano, I make no question of the present : but does pre- 
sentation imply invention ? 

$ Cambrensis tells rather a curious story about St. Finnan's bell: — 
" There is," says he, " in the district of Mactalcwi, in Leinster, a certain 
bell which, unless it is adjured by its possessor every night in a particu- 
lar form of exorcism shaped for the purpose, and tied with a cord (no 
matter how slight) it would be found in the morning at the church of 
St. Finnan, at Clunaroch, in Meath, from whence it was brought : ami, " 
adds he, " this has sometimes happened." 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 175 

the same as of those in the present day. They were 
called crotals, or bell-cymbals. Oblong square ones, 
some of bell-metal, some of iron, from twelve to 
eighteen inches high, with a handle to sound them 
by, have been, also, dug up in our various bogs. Of 
these the museum of the Dublin Society possesses 
one ; another is preserved by the Moira family. The 
writer of this article not having seen either of these 
relics, is rather diffident in the conjecture which he is 
now about to express ; but from the account received 
of that in the possession of the house of Moira, he feels 
strongly disposed to identify its origin with the wor- 
ship of the above-mentioned deity, Astarte. Lucian 
expressly tells us that under the veil of this goddess 
was really meant the moon ; and that " the host of 
heaven," — including sun, moon, and stars, and ty- 
pifying the fulgor of that Omniscient germ whence 
they all had emanated — constituted the object of the 
ancient Irish adoration, no one, I believe, can longer 
question. Now in " Hall's Tour through Ireland/' 
1813, I see this bell described as having "a hole 
in one of its sides like a quarterly moon ;" and not 
knowing whether this is the effect of accident or cor- 
rosion, or a symbolical property in its original shape, 
I trust I shall not be deemed fanciful if I ascribe it 
as a reference to that planet in whose vain solemnities 
it had been primarily exercised. 

Whether this exposition prove eccentrical or 
otherwise — and, by inspection, it can be readily as- 
certained — I cannot presume to determine ; nor in- 
deed does it value much *. With one thing, however, 

* A communication from Mr. Hall himself, just imparted, assures 
me that, as far as he could judge, the aperture was coeval with the in- 
strument, and by no means accidental. 



176 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

1 am gratified, that in " Archer's Travels in Upper 
India," published, as before observed, within the last 
few weeks, I find that distinguished soldier and 
shrewd observer, delineate a piece of architecture 
similar in all particulars to this Syrian Priap — the 
allusion to which has recalled me to rins: this second 
chime upon the bells — and as the notice is of value 
I shall give it in his express words : — " A curious 
structure," says he, " is at the bottom of the hill 
(Dutteah). It consists of five conical pillars, with 
green painted tops, in a line from east to west ; the 
two larger ones in the centre : the pillars have tiles 
stuck in them resembling steps. We could not learn 
what was its meaning or use. The village is wholly 
Jain, and is named Serrowlee." 

It is not difficult to understand why no information 
could be obtained, from the present inhabitants, as to 
the object of those edifices. Their remote antiquity 
is a sufficient reply. But I flatter myself that the 
reader, who has accompanied me from the outset of 
this antiquarian voyage, can now supply the defect, 
and explain that they were a series of Round Towers, 
or Phalli, erected by the aboriginal Budhists, of whom 
the Jaina are only the wretched remains ; and that 
those " tiles," which are " stuck in them, resembling 
steps," were for the purpose of ascending by the aid of 
a hoop, such as we have shown at Hieropolis. The 
projecting stones in our Priaps, or the cavities that 
appear after their removal, are thus also accounted 
for. 



177 



CHAPTER XIV. 

The universal ignorance which prevails throughout 
the East, as to the origin of those antiquities which 
excite the wonder of every traveller, makes it neces- 
sary that we should, again, direct our course towards 
that hemisphere, to redeem, if possible, its venerable 
remains from that moral night which successive ages 
have accumulated around them. 

Persia* was the source which poured its vivifying 
light into the mental obnubilation of our European 
ancestors. By a reverse of those casualties from 
which no condition can be exempt, Persia has, in her 
turn, been made the theatre of darkness : and though, 
under the fostering auspices of British institutions, the 
mist has, to a large amount, been dispelled, yet is the 
proudest era of her splendour left still unexplored, and 

* " This word is generally supposed to be derived from Fars, or Pars, a 
division of the empire of Iran, and applied by Europeans to the whole of 
that kingdom. It is certainly a word unknown, in the sense we use it, 
to the present natives of Iran, though some Arabic writers contend that 
Pars formerly meant the whole kingdom. In proof of this assertion, a 
passage of the Koran is quoted, in which one of Mahomet's companions, 
who came from a village near Isfahan, is called Telman of Fars or Pars. 
We have also the authority of the Scripture for the name of this king- 
dom being Paras or Phars. The authors of the Universal History, on 
what authority I know not, state that the word Iran is not a general 
name of Persia, but of a part of the country. This is certainly erro- 
neous : Iran has, from the most ancient times to the present day, been 
the term by which the Persians call their country ; and it includes, in 
the sense they understand it, all the provinces to the east of the Tigris, 
Assyria Proper, Media, Parthia, Persia, and Hyroania or Mazenderan." 1 
— Sir John Malcolm. 



178 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

that is the epoch which called forth into life those 
monuments of literature and philosophical eminence, 
which, resisting the corrosion of time and the assaults 
of war, still proudly elevate their heads towards 
those orbs, with whose pompous ceremonial they were 
essentially connected, and whose generative proper- 
ties they typically symbolized — I mean the Round 
Towers. 

This was the moment of Persia's halcyon pride : 
this the period of her earthly coruscation : to this 
have all the faculties of my ardent mind with vigour 
been addressed ; and while, in the humble conscious- 
ness of successful investigation, I announce its issue to 
have far exceeded my hopes, I shall avail myself of 
the industry of preceding inquirers to throw light 
upon the intervals, of value, which intervene ; but, 
lest I should intrude upon the province of their well- 
earned honours, I shall, in every such case of borrowed 
assistance, allow the writers themselves to speak ; by 
which it will additionally appear that, with much 
good taste, and with historical honesty, they have 
left a vacuum in their researches, for which the 
public mind has been long athirst, and which my 
exclusive resources could alone supply. 

"The Persian empire*," says Heeren, "owed its 
origin to one of those great political revolutions which 
are of such frequent occurrence in Asia, and the rise 
and progress of which we have already considered in 
general. A rude mountain tribe, of nomad habits, 
rushed with impetuous rapidity from its fastnesses, 
and overwhelmed all the nations of southern Asia, 

* These quotations from the professor's book are not given consecu- 
tively as he wrote them; but brought together from detached sections 
and chapters. 



THE ROUXD TOWERS. 179 

(the Arabians excepted,) from the Mediterranean to 
the Indus and Iaxartes. The mighty empires which 
arose in Asia were not founded in the same manner 
with the kingdoms of Europe. They were generally 
erected by mighty conquering nations, and these, for 
the most part, nomad nations. This important consi- 
deration we must never lose sight of, when engaged 
in the study of their history and institutions." 

" Not only is Persia f Proper memorable on ac- 
count of its historical associations, but also for the 
architectural remains which it continues to present. 
The ruins of Persepolis are the noblest monuments 
of the most flourishing era of this empire, which 
have survived the lapse of ages. As solitary in 
their situation as peculiar in their character, they rise 
above the deluge of years, which for centuries has 
overwhelmed all the records of human grandeur, 
around them, or near them, and buried all traces of 
Susa and of Babylon. Their venerable antiquity 
and majestic proportions do not more command our 
reverence, than the mystery which involves their 
construction awakens the curiosity of the most unob- 
servant spectator. Pillars which belong to no known 
order of architecture ; inscriptions in an alphabet 
which continues an enigma ; fabulous animals which 
stand as guards at the entrance ; the multiplicity 
of allegorical figures which decorate the walls,— -all 
conspire to carry us back to ages of the most remote 
antiquity, over which the traditions of the East shed 
a doubtful and wandering light." 

" The Persians have taken more pains than almost 
any other nation to preserve their records in writing ; 

* Pars is the Persian, Fars the Arabic, pronunciation of the word. 

N 2 



180 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

yet it has been their fate, in common with most other 
nations of antiquity, to be indebted for the stability 
of their fame to foreign historians. Notwithstanding 
the pains they took to register the acts of their 
government, the original documents of their history, 
with a few accidental exceptions, have altogether 
perished. And the inscriptions of Persepolis, like 
the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, will, in a manner, 
have outlived themselves, unless a complete key be 
discovered to the alphabet in which they are com- 
posed." 

Now, as a set off to these extracts, it will be 
necessary to remark that, though true in substance, 
they are only so as descriptive of a particular epoch. 
Empire after empire rolled over, in succession, before 
that which the historian here delineates, and which 
was but the motley combination of a rugged swarm 
of mountaineers, who stalked with ferocious insensi- 
bility over the consecrated relics of monumental glory. 

Herodotus and Arrian were the authorities that 
seduced him into this mistake, the former of whom 
states that " the Persians originally occupied a small 
and craggy country, and that it was proposed in the 
time of Cyrus that they should exchange this for one 
more fertile ; a plan which Cyrus discouraged as 
likely to extinguish their hardy and warlike pursuits;" 
and the latter, that " the Persians, when, under Cvrus, 
they conquered all Asia, were a poor people, inhabit- 
ing a hilly region*;" but those writers were as misin- 
formed, as to all events and particulars relating to this 

* I should have ohserved, that Plato also, speaking of those modern 
Persians, says, they were originally a nation of shepherds and herdsmen, 
occupying a rude country, such as naturally fosters a hardy race of 
people, capable of supporting both cold and watching, and. when needful, 
of enduring the toils of war. — Plato de Leg. iii. op. ii. p. 695. 



THE ROUND 'POWERS. 181 

locality, anterior to the time specified above, as any 
of their contemporaries ; and when we reflect how very 
recent an era in the history of the world was that in 
which Cyrus appeared, it will be seen how fragile a 
substratum was that which the professor had adopted 
for the erection of his materials. We read accord- 
ingly, in Terceira's Spanish history of that country, 
that " there was not at that time (a. d. 1590) one 
man in Persia (these were the direct descendants of 
Cyrus's men) that understood their ancient letters, for 
having often seen some plates of metal with ancient 
inscriptions on them, I made inquiry after the mean- 
ing of them ; and men well versed in their antiquities, 
and studious, told me that was Fars kadeem, ancient 
Persian, after the old fashion, and therefore I should 
find no man that understood it." 

Indeed the reasonings of Heeren himself, — and 
learned I cheerfully acknowledge them, — would seem 
to make him rise above the narrowness of his Grecian 
supporters. 

" Even previous," says he, " to the time when the 
Arabs, with the sword in one hand and the Koran in 
the other, overran and subdued Persia, they were 
the more open to settlers from the north and east, 
from the circumstance that Persia was situated on the 
great highway of nations, by which the human race 
spead itself from east to west. All that is meant 
to be asserted is, that the various races who succes- 
sively had dominion in these parts, all belonged to the 
same original stock. 

" This fact, which the observations of the best 
modern travellers tend to confirm, may explain how it 
has come to pass that many districts, anciently cele- 
brated for their fertility, are at present barren and 



182 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

unproductive. A single invasion, by destroying the 
water-courses, is sufficient to reduce, in a short time, 
a fertile and flourishing country to an arid desert ; 
and to how many such disastrous contingencies has 
not Persia at all times been exposed !" 

"Another fact, suggested by the languages of Asia 
and the ancient dialects of Persia, is too important to 
be passed over in silence. Not only in the Persian 
territory but in other parts of Eastern Asia, particu- 
larly the two Indian peninsulas, we find languages 
which still subsist, mixed up with others which are 
preserved to us only in a few written names, To this 
class belongs, in Persia, the Zend and Pehlivi, already 
mentioned ; in Hindostan, the celebrated Sanscrit, as 
well as the Pali in the Burman peninsula. 

" Accordingly, we shall venture to consider as the 
same parent stock the race which bore rule in Iran, 
comprehending all the inferior races, and which may 
be termed in general the Persian or Medo-Persian, 
inasmuch as the countries in its occupation were 
termed, in a wider sense, the land of Persia. 

" They have been denominated by Rhode (Heilige 
sagen, &c.) the people of Zend, not improperly, if we 
consider the Zend as the original language of all 
the race . . . not confined to Persis, properly so called, 
but extending over the steppes of Carmania and to 
the shores of the Caspian. Even at the present day 
they are comprised under the general name of Persia, 
though Farsistan, the original country of the Persians, 
forms a very small part of this territory. 

" The Semitic and the Persian were, therefore, the 
principal languages of Asia ; the latter being spoken 
as far as the Indus. Our knowledge of the languages 
prevalent on the other side of that river is as yet too 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 183 

defective to enable us to speak with any thing like 
certainty. Possibly it may be reserved for our own 
age to arrive at important conclusions on this subject, 
if the affinity between the Zend and the Sanscrit, the 
sacred lanoriao-es of Persia and Hindostan, should be 
established, — if the spirit of discovery, which charac- 
terizes the British nation, should succeed in rescuing 
from oblivion some more remains of ancient Indian 
literature, and a second Anquetil Du perron present 
the public with the sacred books of the Brahmans, 
with the same success that his predecessor has illus- 
trated those of the Parsees." 

Though I cannot avoid concurring in the laudable 
hope that " our own age" may witness important 
conclusions on this subject, still it strikes me, — and I 
earnestly urge it as worthy the notice of a Reform 
Ministry, that until the Irish Language be raked from 
its ashes, no accuracy can ever be obtained either in 
the Zend, Pahlavi, or Sanscrit dialects, which are but 
emanations from it, or in the subject matter, historical 
or religious, which they profess to pourtray. 

" In the interior of these districts is situated a con- 
siderable lake, called the lake Zevora, unquestionably 
the Aria Palus of antiquity. A large river, anciently 
bearing the same name^ at present called the Ilmend, 
empties itself into this inland sea from the deserts to 
the south-east, and Christie fell in with another stream 
farther to the north, called the Herat, near a town of 
the same name. 

" I consider (with Kinneir) the city of Herat to be 
same with the ancient Aria, or, as it was also called, 
Artacoana. We are told that Alexander on his march 
to Bactriana inclined to the south to visit Aria. We 
must carefully distinguish between the terms Aria 



184 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

and Ariana, as used by the Greeks. The former was 
applied to a province which we shall have occasion to 
describe in the sequel. The latter is equivalent to 
Iran, and appears to have been formed from the an- 
cient term in the Zend language, Eriene. The whole 
of Iran composes a sort of oblong, the Tigris and 
Indus forming its sides to the east and west ; the 
Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean bounding it to the 
south ; and the Caspian, with Mount Taurus and the 
river Oxus, shutting: it in to the north. These were 
also the limits of the ancient Ariana ; (see Strabo, 
p. 1048.) except that, towards the west, its boundary 
was an imaginary line separating it from Persia 
Proper. Of this more extensive district, Aria (accord- 
ing to Strabo) formed only a part, distinguished by its 
superior fertility. Herodotus appears to have been 
unacquainted with the term Aria ; he merely men- 
tions the Arii as a nation allied to the Medes. 

" Aria, lying to the east of Media, derived its name 
from the river Arius, the modern Heri : and the Arians 
and Medes were originally the same race ; the Medes, 
according to Herodotus, having originally borne the 
name Arians. It is apparent, from the same place, 
(Herod, vii. 62.) that what were called the Median 
habits were not confined to Media Proper, but ex- 
tended to the countries lying eastward, and as these 
touched on Bactria, we cannot be surprised at the con- 
formity which prevailed." 

These latter quotations I have thought fit to intro- 
duce to show the ignorance of the modern Greeks, — 
those of Cyrus and Herodotus's days — compared with 
their Pelasgic predecessors — Iran, the real name for all 
those countries of higher Asia as far as the Indus*, being 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 185 

called, in the Zend, Eriene, the Greeks, whose inter- 
course with the East now for the first time began, with- 
out troubling their brains to ascertain what the word in 
either form, meant, transmuted this latter into Ariana, 
whereas their forefathers, the Pelasgi, a literary and 
a religious tribe, changed its namesake in the West, 
our own Iran — which, in the Pahlavi dialect, was called 
Erin, and in the Zend, would also be called Eriene — 
into Ierne, thereby evincing their knowledge of the 
import of the term, and registering their subscription 
in its sacred attributes *. 

The following, however, is more to the point, and, 
in itself, sufficient to redeem the professor's entire work 
from any occasional inclination to Grecian subserviency. 
" It cannot be doubted that, at some remote period, 
antecedent to the commencement of historical records, 
one mighty race possessed these vast plains. 

" The traditions of this race preserve some very im- 
portant particulars respecting their descent, their 
ancient abodes, and their gradual dissemination 
through the land of Iran. These traditions are pre- 
served in the beginning of the Vendidat, the most 
important, and it is probable, the most ancient of all 
their sacred books, the collection of which is styled 
the Zendavasta, to which we shall have occasion 
to refer hereafter. The two first chapters of this 
work, entitled Fargards, contain the above traditions, 

in tuiv tfgo<rapx<r/>v Bazroicjv xcct "Soyoiavuv. iiffi yot.g wai; xai ofiayXairToi <7rapa [ttx.pov. 
— Strabo, p. 1094. 

* All the other variations are thus similarly accounted for ; being but 
offshoots of the same radix, such as I have already shown, page 128, 
in reference to Ireland — while the careful reader will of himself see 
that the name of that lake in Persia, of which the Greeks and Romans, 
conjointly, manufactured Aria Palus, corresponds to our Lough Erne, 
and must doubtless have been so called in Persia also, for Palus is evi- 
dently but the translation of Lough. 



18G THE ROUND TOWERS. 

not wrapt up in allegory, but so evidently historical 
as to demand nothing more than the application of 
geographical knowledge to explain them. With the 
exception of the Mosaical Scriptures, we are ac- 
quainted with nothing which so plainly wears the 
stamp of remote antiquity, ascending beyond the 
times within which the known empires of the East 
flourished ; in which we catch, as it were, the last 
faint echo of the history of a former world, anterior 
to that great catastrophe of our planet, Which is at- 
tested in the vicinity of the parent country of these 
legends, by the remains of the elephant, the rhino- 
ceros, and the mammoth, and other countries pro- 
perly belonging to the countries of the south. It 
would be a fruitless labour to attempt to assign dates 
to these remains, but if the compiler of the Vendidat 
himself, who was long anterior to the Persian, and as 
we shall have occasion to show, probably also to the 
Median dynasty, as known to us, received them as the 
primeval traditions of his race, our opinion of their 
importance may be fully justified. 

" These legends describe as the original seat of the 
race, a delicious country, named JLi'iene-Veedjo, which 
enjoyed a climate singularly mild, having seven 
months summer and five of winter. Such was the 
state at first, as created by the power of Ormuzd ; 
but the author of evil, the death-dealing Ahriman, 
smote it with the plague of cold, so that it came to 
have ten months of winter and only two of summer. 
Thus the nation began to desert the paradise they at 
first occupied, and Ormuzd successively created for 
their reception sixteen other places of benediction 
and abundance, which are faithfully recorded in the 
legend. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 187 

" What then was the site of the Eriene referred to? 
The editors and commentators on the Zenda vesta are 
inclined to discover it in Georgia, or the Caucasian 
district ; but the opinion must necessarily appear un- 
satisfactory to any one who will take into account the 
whole of the record, and the succession of places 
there mentioned as the abodes of the race. On the 
contrary, we there trace a gradual migration of the 
nation from east to west, not as this hypothesis would 
tend to prove, from west to east. The first abode 
which Ormuzd created for the exiled people was 
Soghdi, whose identity with Sogdiana is sufficiently 
apparent ; next Moore, or Maroo, in Khorasan ; then 
Bakhdi, or Balkh (Bactriana)., and so on to Fars itself, 
and the boundaries of Media or India. The original 
country of Eriene must therefore lie to the east of 
Leed, and thus we are led, by the course of tradition, 
to those regions which we have already referred to, 
as the scene of the traditions and fables of the nation, 
viz., the mountainous tracts on the borders of Bu- 
charia, the chain of Mustag and Beloor-land, as far 
as the Paropamisan range on the confines of Hindo- 
stan, and extending northwards to the neighbourhood 
of the Altain chain. This savage and ungenial region 
enjoys at present only a short summer, at the same 
time that it contains the reliques of an ancient world, 
which confirm, by positive proof, the legend of the 
Vendidat, that anciently the climate was of a totally 
different character. When the altered nature of their 
original seats compelled the race to quit them, Or- 
muzd prepared for them other places of repose and 
abundance, within the precincts of that territory 
which has preserved to the presetit day the appellation 



188 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

of Iran ; the nation carrying with them the name of 
Eriene, which is obviously the same with Iran. 

" Jemshid, the father of his people, the most 
glorious of mortals whom the sun ever beheld. In 
his day animals perished not : there was no want 
either of water or of fruit-bearing trees, or of animals 
fit for the food of mankind. During the light of his 
reign there was neither frost nor burning heat, nor 
death, nor unbridled passions, nor the work of the 
Deevs, Man appeared to retain the age of fifteen ; 
the children grew up in safety as long as Jemshid 
reigned the father of his people *. 

" The restoration of such a golden age was the end 
of the legislation of Zoroaster, who, however, built his 
code on a religious foundation agreeably to the prac- 
tice of the East ; and the multifarious ceremonies he 
prescribed had all reference to certain doctrines inti- 
mately associated with his political dogmata ; and it 
is absolutely necessary to bear in mind their alliance, 
if we would not do injustice to one part or other of 
his system. 

" On these principles Zoroaster built his laws for 
the improvement of the soil by means of agriculture, 
by tending of cattle and gardening, which he per- 
petually inculcates, as if he could not sufficiently im- 
press his disciples with a sense of their importance. 

" According to his own professions he was only the 
restorer of the doctrine which Ormuzd himself had 
promulgated in the days of Jemshid : this doctrine, 
however, had been misrepresented, a false and de- 
lusive magia, the work of Deevs, had crept in, which 

* Zendavesta, i. 14. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 189 

was first to be extinguished, in order to restore the 
pure laws of Ormuzd. 

" Even Plato, the first Grecian writer who mentions 
Zoroaster, speaks of him as a sage of remote antiquity ; 
and the same is established by the evidence of Hermip- 
pus and Eudoxus, which Pliny has preserved. The 
second Zoroaster, supposed by Toucher to have flou- 
rished under Darius Hystaspes, is the mere figment of 
some later Grecian authors of little credit. 

" On the whole, we are compelled to carry back 
Zoroaster to the period when Bactriana was an inde- 
pendent monarchy, a period anterior to the very com- 
mencement of the Median empire, as related by Hero- 
dotus, ascending- beyond the eighth century before the 
Christian era. Whether we must refer him to a still 
more ancient epoch, prior to the Assyrian monarchy, 
the chronological notices we have alreadv given are 
all that can be afforded, except we be prepared to 
transport the sage beyond the utmost limits of recorded 
history." 

As I have no longer occasion, however, for the 
sage than to show that he was a reformer ; and 
though at least " eight (more likely eighteen) hun- 
dred years before the Christian era," — yet was he 
even then, comparatively, a modern, — I shall now 
turn to other sources to ascend to the dynasties that 
had preceded him. 

" The rare and interesting tract on twelve reli- 
gions," says Sir W. Jones, " entitled the Dabistan, 
and composed by a Mahomedan traveller, a native of 
Cashmere, named Moshan, but distinguished by the 
assumed surname of Fani, or Perishable, begins with 
a wonderfully curious chapter on the religion of 
Hushang, which was long anterior to Zeradust (Zo- 



190 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

raaster), but had continued to be secretly professed by 
many learned Persians, even to the author's time ; and 
several of the most eminent of these dissenting, in many 
points, from the Gabrs, and persecuted by the ruling 
powers of their country, had retired to India, where 
they compiled a number of books, now extremely 
scarce, which Moshan had perused, and with the writers 
of which, or with many of them, he had contracted 
an intimate friendship. From them he learned that a 
•powerful monarchy had been established for ages in 
Iran, before the accession of Cayemurs ; that it was 
called the Mahabadean dynasty, for a reason which 
will soon be mentioned ; and that many princes, of 
whom seven or eight only are named in the Dabis- 
tan, and among them Mahbul, or Maha Beli, had 
raised the empire to the zenith of human glory. If 
we can rely on this evidence, — which to me appears 
unexceptionable, — the Iranian monarchy must have 
been the oldest in the world." 

Sir John Malcolm had some scruples as to the 
authenticity of this production, and entered upon a 
very severe analysis of its contents ; merely because 
the idols which the ancient Persians are therein stated 
to have adored, and the mode of their adoration, were 
dissimilar to those of India ! Was it necessary that 
they should be alike ? It is true, that from Persia 
everything Indian flowed ; but there, on its importa- 
tion, it partook of the peculiarities of the soil and 
climate ; while, even in Persia itself, a great dege- 
neracy occurred ; and the deterioration and moral 
laxity, thus superinduced, was what the virtuous 
Zerdust so deplored, and what kindled his fervour 
to new model the system. 

But " the introduction of the angel Gabriel," he 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 191 

says, u appears of itself enough to discredit the 
whole work." Was Sir John sure that this render- 
ing was literal? He himself admits that he was 
" following a Mahomedan author, who has certainly 
made a free translation of the Pahlavi text." And, 
if so in one case, why not in another ? But even 
admitting that there was no freedom at all used in 
the matter ; and that Gabriel is the rigid version of 
the name of the messenger employed, this should not, 
in the least, affect our reliance upon the Dabistan, as 
I shall adduce a greater coincidence than this, nay, a 
downright identity, not only of name but of essence, 
between the divine dispensation in all previous ages, 
and the spiritual form of it with which we are at pre- 
sent blessed. 

But you will say, perhaps, that Moshan Fani's 
authorities were, in a great measure, floating, and 
dependent upon histories of a merely oral stamp, 
which — wanting as they do, the impress of lettered 
perpetuity, and subject, as they are, to variation, 
both of curtailment and of addition, besides the colour 
of depreciation or enhancement, which they must 
furthermore undergo, according to the nature of the 
successive media through which they pass, — cannot, 
after repeated transfusions, retain much similarity 
with the original truth, nor afford to a rational and 
thinking mind, however they may gratify selfish or 
national love, much stability for conviction or satis- 
factory acquiescence? 

To the first I shall reply that it seems not correct, 
as the manuscripts by which he was guided appear 
still in existence ; and this was not without its influ- 
ence on Sir John's own scepticism, when he declares, 
that " The doubtful authority of this work has 



192 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

received some support from the recent discovery of a 
volume in the ancient Pehlivi, called the Dussadeer, 
or Zemarawatseer, to which its authors refer." 

Then, as to the vanity alluded to, the compiler 
may well be acquitted of any, as being- of a different 
creed, and proverbially intolerant, he could not, did 
not truth oversway, have felt much communion of plea- 
sure in celebrating the glories of a defunct religion. 
And though I concede that that species of information, 
which arises from the traditions of successive races of 
men, cannot be so satisfactory as that which is stereo- 
typed in alphabetic characters; nay, that, according 
as it diverges from its first outlet, it is likely to 
diverge also from exactness ; still I do insist, that the 
prevalence of those traditions, wherever they occur, 
argues some alliance with fact and reality ; just as 
idolatry itself, in all its ramifications, is but the cor- 
rupt transmission of original pure religion. 



1 93 



CHAPTER XV. 

The objections against the Dabistan being thus 
superseded ; and the idea of its being an " inven- 
tion *," having never crossed any one's thoughts, I 
shall now give a bird's-eye view of its tenour in Sir 
John's own summary thereof. 

" It has been before observed," says he, " that the 
idolatrous religion which Mohsin Fani ascribes to 
the ancient Persians, bears no resemblance to the 
worship of the Hindoos : it seems nearest that which 
was followed by a sect of Sabians, who, we are told, 
believed in God, but adored the planets, whom they 
deemed his vicegerents, that exercised an influence over 
all created things in the world. This sect of Sabians 
were said to follow the ancient Chaldeans, and to 
inherit their skill in astronomy, a science built upon 
the same foundation as the adoration of the planets 'f. 
And this leads us to remark, that the very title of the 
work from which Mohsin Fani gives an account of 
this worship, appears more like that of a treatise 

* " And what would hardly appear possible, as we cannot discover 
what purpose such a finished fable of idolatrous superstition would be 
meant to answer." — Sir John Malcolm's History of Persia, vol. i. p. 191. 

f Yet in Hindoostan, also, as we learn from Major Archer, " an 
astrologer is a constituted authority in all the villages, and nothing 
pertaining to life and its concerns is commenced without his sanction." 

O 



194 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

upon astrology, than upon religion. He calls it 
Akheristan, or the region of the stars. It is, however, 
impossible to enter into any minute comparison of the 
religion he ascribes to the ancient Persians, and the 
sect of Sabians that have been noticed, because we 
have only a very general account of the tenets of the 
latter." 

As to the impossibility here complained of, it is 
obvious that there is none : whoever has digested 
even the early part of this essay will own it was but 
ideal. With this I should have contented myself, but 
that I feel called upon to correct another misconcep- 
tion, which the above may have produced. 

That Sabaism meant idolatry in the way there insi- 
nuated, I utterly and altogether repudiate. It was 
the religion of the early Greeks before their degene- 
rate mythology had loaded it with so many absurdi- 
ties * ; and that it was so, is evident from the term 
in their language, which expresses " to worship," viz., 
as€o[xai, an evident derivation, from which is angli- 
cised, Sabaism f. The object of this religion was the 
host of heaven, meaning the sun, moon, and stars. 
The names assigned to the reputed idols, viz., Ura- 
nus, i. e. Heaven, and Gea, i. e. Earth, with the 
energies of the sky and nature typified under the 
names of the " Cyclops" and " Giants," incontro- 
vertibly demonstrate the truth of this position. 

* Tout, dans le systeme prirnitif de la religion des Grecs, atteste la 
transposition des traditions comme des principes ; tout y est vague, 
sombre et confus. — Dk Sacy. 

t The Sabians themselves boasting the origin of their religion from 
Seth, and pretending to have been denominated from a son of his called 
Sabius, as also of having among them a book, which they called the 
Book of Seth. — Prideaux, part i. book iii. 



YUE ROUND TOWERS. 195 

I have said that the name Cyclops, in this religious 
code, was meant to figure forth the energies of the 
atmosphere ; I need but mention their denominations 
to establish my proof. They are " Steropes," from 
(rrspo7rrj, lightning ; Argues, from ap-yrig, quick-flash- 
ing ; and Brontes, from fbpovrr), thunder. Even the 
celebrated name of Hercules * himself, and the twelve 
labours poetically ascribed to him, — who, we must 
observe, many ages before the Tirynthian hero is 
fabled to have performed his wonders, or his mother 
Clymena to have been born, had temples raised to 
him in Phoenicia and Egypt, as well as at Cadiz and 
the Isle of Thasos — are nothing more than a figura- 
tive denotation of the annual course of the solar 
luminary through the signs of the Zodiac. 

In support of this I shall quote the authority of 
Porphyry, who was himself born in Phoenicia, and 
who assures us that " they there gave the name of 
Hercules to the sun, and that the fable of the twelve 
labours represents the sun's annual path in the 
heavens." Orpheus, or the author of the hymns that 
pass under his name, says that Hercules is " the god 
who produced time, whose forms vary, the father of 
all things and destroyer of all ; he is the god who 
brings back by turns Aurora and the night, and who 
moving onwards from east to west, runs through the 
career of his twelve labours ; the valiant Titan, who 
chases away maladies, and delivers man from the evils 
which afflict him." The scholiast on Hesiod like- 
wise remarks, " The zodiac in which the sun per- 
forms his annual course is the true career which 
Hercules traverses in the fable of the twelve labours; 

* This is only a corruption from the Irish word Ercol, the sun. 

o 2 



196 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

and his marriage with Hcebe, the goddess of youth, 
whom he espoused after he had ended his labours, 
denotes the renewal of the year at the end of each 
solar revolution." While the poet Nonnas, adverting 
to the sun as adored by the Tyrians, designates him 
Hercules Astrokiton, (omtt qo^ircov,) or the god clothed 
in a mantle of stars ; following up this description by 
stating that "he is the same god whom different 
nations adore, under a multitude of different names — • 
Belus, on the banks of the Euphrates — Ammon, in 
Libya — Apis, at Memphis — Saturn, in Arabia — Ju- 
piter, in Assyria — Serapis, in Egypt — Helios, among 
the Babylonians — Apollo, at Delphi — JEsculapius, 
throughout Greece," &c. &c. 

Even the father of history himself, the great Co- 
lossus of the Greeks, whilst claiming for his country- 
men the honour of instituting their own theogony, 
evinces in the attempt more of misgiving and doubt 
than was consistent with the possession of authentic 
information. His words are these : — " As for the 
gods whence each, of them was descended, or whether 
they were always in being, or under what shape or 
form they existed, the Greeks knew nothing till very 
lately. Hesiod and Homer were, I believe, about 
four hundred years older than myself, and no more, 
and these are the men who made a theogony for the 
Greeks ; who gave the gods their appellations, de- 
fined their qualities, appointed their honours, and 
described their forms ; as for the poets, who are said 
to have lived before these men, I am of opinion they 
came after them." 

But even this assumption, were it conceded to the 
utmost, would not militate against the doctrine which 
I have laid down : for Homer's education was received 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 197 

in Egypt, and India was the medium which illumi- 
nated the latter country ; nothing, therefore, pre- 
vents our yielding to the stream of general authority 
in ascribing the introduction to the Pelasgi. The 
word x^ovog itself, or " the father of Jove," was nothing 
more than an equivalent with the Latin tempus ; and 
for the very best possible reason, because the revolu- 
tions of this planet, as of the other celestial orbs, 
came, from their periodical and regular appearances, 
to be considered the ordinary measurements of the 
parts of duration or time. 

It must, no doubt, appear a contradiction that 
Chronos, — the " son of Uranus, and Terra," as we 
were told at school, and the first person, as somewhere 
else stated, who was honoured with a crown, — should 
be called an " orb," and have " periodical appear- 
ances ;" and that those appearances should regulate 
our estimate of days, weeks, years, and seasons. The 
difficulty, however, will cease, when we consider that 
though the sun, moon, and stars were the primary 
objects of false worship, the deification of dead men, 
deceased heroes, afterwards crept in, the consequence 
of which was a mixed kind of idolatry, consisting of 
stars and heroes, or heroines, deceased — a planet being- 
assigned to each as the greatest possible honour. 
"■ That whom men could not honour in presence, be- 
cause they dwelt far off, they took the counterfeit of 
his visage from far, and made an express image of 
a king, whom they honoured, to the end that by their 
forwardness they might flatter him that was absent, 
as if he was present*." 

Let us now see how the religion of the ancient 
Irish harmonizes with that of the Dabistan, as illus- 

* Wisdom of Solomon, xiv. 10, 17. 



198 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

trated in the composition of some of our ancient 
names. Here Baal or Moloch, and Astarte are ob- 
viously in the foreground ; whilst the popular and 
vernacular names for those luminaries amongst the 
peasantry themselves, namely, Grian for the sun, 
Luan for the moon, Righ for Jang, and Rea for queen, 
in their appropriation to several localities throughout 
the country, indicate, but too plainly, the melancholy 
tale of their former deification. 

To instance some few of those names, that strike 
me as demonstrative of this Sabian worship, I shall 
begin with 

Baltinglas *. — This name of a town and mountain 

* To this exactly corresponds, as well in import as in appropriation, 
the name of one of the hills upon which Rome was built, that is, Pala- 
tinus, which — no doubt, to the amazement of etymological empirics — is 
nothing less than a compound of Baal and tinne; that is, Baal's fire — 
the initial B and P being always commutable. And Aven-tinus, the 
epithet of another of the Seven Mounts, is derived from Avan, a river ; 
and tinne, fire, meaning the fire-hill, near the river. And as the former 
was devoted to the sun, so the latter was to the moon ; in confirmation 
of which it got another name, viz., Re-monius, of which the component 
parts are Re, the moon ; and moin, an elevation. 

The Pru-taneion, also, amongst the Greeks, was what? A fire-h\\\. 
Startle not, it is a literal truth. But the Dictionaries and Lexicons say 
nothing about these matters ? nay, offer other explanations f mystifica- 
tions, Sir, if you please, whereby they implicate, as well themselves as 
their readers, in absurdities : which could not be expected to be otherwise, 
uninstructed, as their authors necessarily were, in the elements of that 
language whence all those words have diverged. 

Pru-taneion, then, is compounded of Bri, a mount, and tinne, fire ; the 
B, as before observed, being commutable with P, particularly amongst 
the Greeks, who indifferently called Britain B^£rav/*» and rig etokxu (vjj™,- 
being understood). Every community had, of old, one of those Bri- 
tennes, or fire mounts, natural or artificial. The guardian of the sacred 
element therein was called, Bri-ses ; and the dwelling assigned him, 
hard by, Astu. The number of those latter Cecrops reduced, in Attica, 
from one hundred and sixty, to twelve. Of these Theseus appointed the 
principal station at Cecropia, the name of which he changed, by way of 
eminence, to Astu; and hence this latter word, which originally but 
represented the abode of the Sacerdos, came ultimately to signify a city 
at large; as Prutaneion did a Common Council Hall. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 199 

in the county of Wicklow, and province of Leinster, 
is equivalent to Baal-tinne-glass, that is, " Baal's-fire- 
green," alluding to the colour of the grass at the spring- 
season. These igneous betrayals of human frailty and 
superstition were celebrated throughout Ireland at 
both the vernal and autumnal equinoxes, in honour of 
the twin divinities so often adverted to in the course 
of this book. The eve of the vernal one was called 
Aiche Baal-tinne, that is, the night of Baal's fire, the 
eve of the autumnal, Aiche Shamain, that is, the night 
of the moon's solemnity ; on both which occasions 
fires were lighted on all " the high places " dedicated 
to their worship. 

The return of these respective seasons gave 
rise to various superstitions amongst the illiterate 
populace, one of which was that of borrowing a 
piece of money at the first sight of the new-moon, if 
they had it not themselves, as an omen of plenty 
throughout the month *. And their praying to that 
luminary, when first seen after its change, is so well 
known as to be mentioned even by a French writer, 
whom Selden, " De Diis Syriis," quotes in these 
words : — " Se mittent a genoux en voyant la lune 
nouvelle, et disent en parlant a lune, laise nous ausi 
sains que tu nous as trouve*." 

The new moon nearest to the winter solstice was 

* To this day, the most kindly wish, and ordinary salutation, of the Irish 
peasant, continues to he Bal dhia duit, Bal dhia ort, that is the god Baal 
to you, or the god Baal upon you. 

t The Irish mode of expressing it is Slanfuar tu sin, agus slanadfaga 
tu sin. The Caifres who reside all round the Cape, pay their adoration 
to the moon, by dancing to her honour when she changes, or when 
she is at the full. They prostrate themselves on the ground, then rise 
up again, and, gazing at her orb, with loud acclamations, make the fol- 
lowing address :— " We, thy servants, salute thee. Give us store of milk 
and honey ; increase our flocks and herds, and we will worship thee." 



200 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

celebrated with peculiar ceremonies. On that night 
the chief Druid, attended by crowds of the people, 
used to go into the woods, and cut with a golden 
sickle a branch of the mistletoe of the oak, which he 
would carry in procession to the sacred grove. This 
golden sickle or crescent, corresponded in form and 
nature with that which Aurelius Antoninus, the Ro- 
man emperor, wore at his coronation, to intimate his 
adherence to the Phoenician doctrines in which he 
had been early instructed — his adopted name still 
further intimating that he had been, what it literally 
signifies, Heliogabalus, that is, priest of the sun *. 
The crescent itself is the favourite badge of Sheevah, 
the matrimonial deity of the Indians, which he is re- 
presented as wearing in front of his crown. 

After the introduction of Christianity, its first 
preachers wishing to defer to the prejudices of the 
inhabitants, yet not so as to interfere with the cele- 
bration of Easter at the vernal equinox, with an ac- 
commodating policy, retained the Baal-tinne ceremo- 
nial, only transferring it to the saints 7 days ; thus 
diverting their attention from their former devotion, 
and fixing it upon those who, in their zealous propa- 
gation of the gospel truths, may be considered as 
Christian stars ; — conformably to that gracious cha- 
racter of " a burning and shining light/' which our 
Saviour himself applied to his precursor, St. John. 

In honour of this Apostle, June 24th, the day of 
his nativity, was substituted, in the old ecclesiastical 
calendar, for the pagan solstice festival, and called 
solstitium vulgi, the vulgar solstice. 

The intention of the transfer was, however, lost 
sight of by the illiterate ; and when they would 

* The word is more mysterious, as I shall explain elsewhere. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 201 

kindle their fires on the tops of mountains on those 
occasions, they used to blend with them the features 
of the pagan institution, by passing children and 
cattle between them for the purpose of purification. 

The propriety, therefore, of thus subserving to 
deep-rooted prejudices, has by some been impugned ; 
but " surely," after all, to use the words of a very 
able writer, " they were much wiser and better who, 
in those early times, grafted the evangelical upon the 
druidical culture, than they who, in subsequent times, 
instituted a system of extirpation in order to regene- 
rate." 

The other pagan solemnities were similarly meta- 
morphosed, and partook of similar transmutations. 
The first of May alone retained the name and charac- 
teristics of its original appropriation, being still called 
" Lia-Beuil-tinne" that is, the day of Baal's fire, as 
familiarly as the name of Christmas is given to the 
25th of December. On it, too, fires are kindled on 
" high places," as before ; and children and cattle 
purified by passing between them ; — 

" Yet, oh ! remember 

Oft I have heard thee say, the secret heart 
Is fair Devotion's temple : there the saint 
Even on that living altar lights the flame 
Of purest sacrifice, which burns unseen, 
Not unaccepted.*" 

I next turn to Killmalloch, the ancient name of 
which, as given by Ptolemy, was Macollicon, — a me- 
tathesis for Mallochicon ; and the final, icon, which is 
only a Greek termination, being taken away, leaves 
Malloch, that is, Moloch, the Apollo or great divi- 
nity of the ancient universe. 

To divert the natives from this misplaced enthu- 
siasm, one of the early converts to Christianity as- 

* Hannah More. 



202 THE ROUND TO AVERS. 

sumed to himself the name of Maloch ; and then pre- 
fixing to it the adjunct Kill, made it the church of 
Maloch, instead of the city of Moloch. 

Here is still to be seen, careering towards the skies, 
one of those " singular temples of round form," — of the 
existence of which Vitruvius was so ignorant, but whose 
dogmatic enunciation of " monopteres" and " perip- 
teres," sounds as feebly in my ears, as Montmorency's 
assumption that the Round Towers were dungeons ! 
— and the violence which this structure has latterly 
undergone — by the effort made to incorporate it with 
the Christian cathedral, built beside it in rivalship, 
after an interval of nearly three thousand years — is one 
of the most triumphant evidences which truth can 
produce in suppression of error. My soul burned 
with earnestness to visit this hallowed scene, upon 
which I had revolved so much, and which I associated 
in my fancy with the recorded glories of Apollo. I 
have, at last, seen it ; and he must be indeed a slave 
to faction, or the dupe of prejudice, who will not sub- 
scribe to that evidence which the very stones pro- 
claim. 

Apollo's Temple, or the Round Tower, stands at 
the corner of the cathedral, subsequently built half- 
around it : and, as you ascend the parapet of the 
latter, by an inter-mural staircase, having to pass, after- 
wards, from one side of this parapet to the other, just 
at the very corner by which the Tower is girt, the 
pass being very narrow, and almost terrific in dimen- 
sions, wholly defenceless besides, on the right hand 
which looks down into the body of the cathedral, the 
constructors of this latter edifice were obliged, in their 
desire to intermarry Christianity with paganism, to 
scoop off, or rather to file, about six inches of the 
ancient rotund structure, all along, on the left, to the 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 203 

height of the human figure, so as to allow more room ; 
yet even thus mutilated, I could not but reverence 
and bow down before the Tower. 

" For, even the faintest relics of a shrine, 
Of any worship, wake some thoughts divine*." 

After this transformation, Kilmalloch assumed an 
entirely Christian aspect ; and the monastic buildings 
that crowded the town surpassed, in their style, any 
thing similar throughout the island. The materials, 
however, of which those were constructed, being- 
inferior in quality to the Tuathan composition, did not 
long keep place ; so that now, whilst the Round 
Tower still maintains its bold pre-occupancy, the 
Christian churches exhibit but a pile of ruins ! 

The dreariness of this once imperial site is a moving 
instance of worldly vicissitudes ; and one can scarcely 
avoid, when passing by the loneliness of its dilapi- 
dated mansions, applying the apposite and melan- 
choly apostrophe attributed to Ossian, " Why dost 
thou build the hall, son of the winged days? Thou 
lookest from thy towers to-day ; yet a few years, and 
the blast of the desert comes, it howls in thy empty 
courts." 

Ard-Mulchan, the name of a village in the barony 
of Duleck, county Meath, comes from Ard, the high 
place, or mound, Mulchan of Moloch. And, however 
extraordinary it may appear to some readers, I cannot 
but hazard my opinion, that the name of the indi- 
vidual to whom St. Patrick had been sold during his 
captivity in this island, viz., M^/co-Mac-Huanan, that 
is, Milco, the son-of-Huanan, originated in the cir- 
cumstance of the family's devotion to the service of 
this idol ; and if a doubt remained as to the justness 

* Bvron. 



204 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

of this conclusion, it will, methinks, be removed, 
when we consider the close of his mortal career, and 
the unfortunate blindness with which he clung to his 
fatuity. 

He was a petty prince of that part of the country, 
afterwards called Dalruadia, or the principality of the 
Dalruads, from the prevalence of that demi-tribe, in 
Ulster ; and when Patrick, — in prosecution of that 
mission of grace, to which he had been deputed by 
divine interposition ; and impelled, perhaps, moreover, 
by a compassionate zeal and Christian recollection 
of his previous bondage, — undertook, amongst other 
conversions, that of his former master, we find that 
the sentiment was not reciprocated on his part ; but 
that, either ashamed of allowing himself to be per- 
suaded, in his old age, to abandon the religion in 
which he had been early initiated ; or marked out 
by Providence as an awful victim to the prevailing 
superstition, he plunged himself into a fire which had 
accidentally broke out in his castle, and so was con- 
sumed by that element which he had before wor- 
shipped as his God ! 

Athlone, — or as anciently and correctly written 
Ath-luain, — the name of a town situated on the river 
Shannon, where it is fordable, bounding Leinster in 
Westmeath, and Connaught in Galway, is com- 
pounded of the words Ath, which signifies a ford ; and 
luain, of the moon. The common people still call it 
Blah-luin, an evident corruption of Baile-ath-luin, that 
is, the village of the ford of the moon; equivalent to 
Moon-ford-town. This name establishes the analogy 
of the Syrian Astarte with the worship here paid to 
the "■ queen of night," and the many lunettes, or gold 
crescents, found buried in the neighbourhood, are 
" confirmation gstron" of the inference deduced. 



THF. ROUND TOWERS. 205 

The moon, whose course through the heavens 
regulated the months of the early lunar year, and 
whose influence was regarded by the ancients, in 
common with that of the sun, as one of the fertilizing 
principles of nature, and as exerted chiefly amid wilds 
and woods, at a distance from the crowded abodes of 
man, had in this spot, apparently, a peculiar claim 
for her special appropriation. For, here the aged 
majesty of the river Shannon, the Ganges of Ireland — 
as we find reciprocally that Shannon is one of the 
Gangian names, and Saor, or Suir, the name of 
another Irish river, meaning " sacred" water, belongs 
also to the Indus itself — displays its imposing gran- 
deur in all the varieties of sublime and delightful 
scenery. Not far off is one of those beautiful lakes 
into which this monarch of waters expands himself, to 
bask, as it were, in repose, from the tiresome gaze 
attending the crowded path of his ordinary travels ; 

" Tho' deep, yet clear ; tho' gentle, yet not dull ; 
Strong without rage ; without o'erflowing full*." 

Lough Rea is the name of the lake above referred 
to, which, from its proximity to Athlone, gives con- 
current sanction to the derivation above assigned. 
For Rea, in Irish, corresponds to Malcoth, or Astarte, 
i. e., queen, that is, Shamaim, of the heavens ; as Righ 
does to Baal, or Molock, master, or king of the 
same ; and both re-echoed in the regina and rex of 
the Latins f. 

I should further notice, that in the Barony of 
Castle-?-eag/z, — a name which, though prefaced by a 

* One superstition of the Pagans never fails to assert its influence 
upon spots like this — the genius loci is always ascendant. — Deank. 

t Ab-roch also, the official title of Joseph, when appointed regent of 
Egypt, signifies father of the king. 



206 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

modem adjunct, still testifies its devotion, at one time, 
to the moon — there has been, some years ago, dug 
up one of those beautiful plates of gold, shaped like 
a half-moon, at once confirmatory of the propriety 
of the local name, and of the nature of the worship 
of its primitive incumbents having been lunar or 
Sabian. This relic is now in the possession of the 
Downshire family. 

In reference to Shannon, to which I have before 
adverted, as being one of the names of the Ganges, 
it is not a little curious that Durga, the supposed 
divinity of this water, and whose festival is annually 
solemnized all through Hindoostan, should be repre- 
sented by Derg, the supposed divinity of the Shan- 
non, and should have its name still more perpe- 
tuated in the Irish word Dearg-art, that is, the abode 
of Derg, in Lough Derg, the lower lake upon this 
river. 

From its mouth to its source this noble stream is 
characterized with relics of primeval worship, cor- 
responding, in form and tendency,, with those on 
the banks of its Indian namesake. Scattery Island, 
or as it should more properly be called, Inis Catty, 
situated very near where it discharges itself into the 
sea, retains a beautiful Round Tower, to which has 
been afterwards appended, in the Christian times, 
the mystical number of seven churches, and the 
ruins of which are still perceptible. The circumstance 
of an early professor of our heaven-taught religion 
having taken up his secluded residence within the pre- 
cincts of this spot, has led many moderns to suppose 
that the river obtained its name from him, whereas 
the word Shannon is derived from Shan Aoun, that 
is, the " aged river ;" and the saint received his name 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 207 

from that pious policy before explained, as well as 
from the constancy of his abode in its vicinity — not 
vice versa *. 

Killeshandra, the name of a town in the county of 
Leitrim, on the borders of the county of Cavan, 
signifies, in Irish, " the temple of the moon's cycle," 
or circle. In Sanscrit, which is a dialect of the 
aboriginal Irish f, it denotes exactly the same. We 
find besides Herodotus making mention, B. xi. c. 98, 
of a city in Egypt, during the Persian dominion, 
called Archandra, that is, " the city of the moon."" 
He asserts that it is not Egyptian, neither derived 
from the wife of Danaus, the daughter of Archander : 
yet the opposite may be well supported, without 
at the same time injuring this derivation, for the 
daughters of Danaus were certainly initiated in the 
Phallic rites ; nay, they were the persons who first 
imported them into Attica : and it is eminently worth 
notice, that this was the very spot£ where the Tuath- 
de-danaan kings happened to be stationed upon the 
first Scythian deluge ; the word " Kill " having been 

* The Himalaya are the peculiar abodes of the gods of the Hindoos ; 
the rivers, issuing from the eternal snows, are goddesses, and are sacred 
in the eyes of all. Shrines, of the most holy and awful sanctity, are at 
the fountain heads of the Ganges and Jumna ; and on the summit of 
Kedar Nauth, Cali, that goddess of bloody rites, is supposed to have 
taken up her residence. One, among the numerous proceedings of her 
votaries, is to scramble as high up the mountain as they can attain, 
taking with them a goat for an offering : the animal is turned loose with 
a knife tied round his neck ; the belief is, that the goddess will find the 
victim, and immolate it with her own hand. — Archer. 

t This adjective I apply indiscriminately to Persia or to Ireland. 

% It lies in the district of Ins-oin, which means the abode of Ma- 
gicians ; corrupted now to /ra's-owen, which would import Eugene's 
island. An aggravated blunder — the place being in the very centre of 
the country, with which such an imaginary chevalier was never as- 
sociated. 



208 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

prefixed to it only upon the introduction of Chris- 
tianity. 

Granard, the name of a town in the county of 
Longford, is compounded of the words Grian, the 
sun, and ard, a height, that is, the sun's high- 
place. Nor, I suspect, will it be deemed an over- 
effort of criticism, if I repeat, that in our Irish 
Grian is to be found the root of that epithet of Apollo, 
Grynceas *, which was also the name of a city of Asia 
Minor, consecrated to his worship, and favoured, as 
Strabo informs us, with a grove, a temple, and an oracle 
of that deity. The river Granicus, too, was derived 
therefrom, because its source lay in Mount Ida, sacred 
to Grian, or the sun, whereon was situated the Idean 
stone, upon which, we are told, Hector was wont 
to sacrifice ; and corresponding to the Cromleachs, so 
common throughout this island. The word Came, 
also; meaning a heap of stones, on which an inferior 
order of clergy, thence called Carneach, used to offi- 
ciate, belongs to the same root, as both Ovid and 
Macrobius declare that it was called, by the ancients, 
Grane f. 

As Lough Rea had been dedicated to the moon, so 
was the other luminary also honoured with a lake, — 

* His tibi Gryncei nemoris dicatur origo, 
Ne quis sit lucus, qua. se plus jactet Apollo. 

VlRG. Eel. 6. 

t Granem dixere priores. — Ovid. 
Although those heaps are now hut signals of accidental or violent 
death, for which each passenger bespeaks his sorrow by adding a small 
stone, yet we see that in their origin they were more religiously de- 
signed , and while this latter practice is observed also in India, it ap- 
pears that they have retained there more correctly the primitive idea, as 
maybe inferred from these words of Major Archer: — "On the right 
and left are several cairns of stones, erected by parties of travellers as 
they cross, in acknoicledgment to the deities or presiding spirits for 
their protection.'" 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 209 

called after his name, — which we find in the adjoining 
country, where Lough Grant/ signifies the Lake of 
the Sun; as we do also Beal-ath, or Ath-en-righ, that 
is, the Ford of Baal, or the Ford of the King, i. e., the 
Sun ; coresponding to Ath-lone, or Ford of the Moon. 
The above are but a few of those imperishable 
memorials intertwined round those haunts which our 
forefathers have trod ; the import of which, however, 
has been so perverted by modem scribblers, as to give 
occasion to O'Flaherty to give up their solution in 
despair, and, as a cover to his retreat, to pronounce 
them " as outlandish in their sound, as the names of 
the savages in some of the American forests*.' 1 In this 
rhodomontade, however, he was much more fortunate 
than he had intended, or, as the Englishmen say of 
our countrymen, " he blundered himself into the 
right." Little did he suspect how near a connexion 
there existed between the two people whom he 
affected, thus ridiculously, to associate ■ and any one 
who attends to the position which I subjoin, inde- 
pendently of many others that could be brought in 
support of it, will admit the happiness of this unin- 
tional coincidence. The Algan Kinese are the most 
influential and commanding people in the whole of 
North America; their name in Irish indicates as 
much, viz., Algan- Kine, or Kine Algaiv\, a noble com- 
munity. The language of this people is the master 
one of the whole country ; and, what is truly remark- 
able, understood, as Baron de Humboldt asserts, by 
all the Indian nations except two. What then are 
we to infer from this obvious affinity ? Most 

* Ogyg. seu Rer. Iber. Chron., part i. p. 16. 

•I- One of the ancient names of Ireland is Inis Algan, that is, the 
Noble Island. 

P 



210 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

undoubtedly, that a colony of the same people who 
first inhabited Ireland, and assigned to its several 
localities those characteristic names, which so discon- 
certed the harmony of Mr. O'Flaherty's acoustic organs, 
had fixed themselves, at an early date, in what has 
been miscalled the New World. 

Small, however, as is the number of the names 
here selected, they are enough, I flatter myself, to 
establish the prevalence of our Sabian ritual. But 
what puts this matter beyond anything like a ques- 
tion is the inscription upon a stone, still extant, in 
the county of Dublin, evidently a symbol of the Sim 
and Moon, which, like Osiris and Isis of Egypt, were 
considered by the ancient Irish as united in matri- 
mony. 

" God, in the nature of each being, founds 
Its proper bliss, and sets its proper bounds : 
But as he framed a whole the whole to bless, 
On mutual wants built mutual happiness : 
So from the first, eternal order ran, 
And creature linked to creature, man to man. 
Whate'er of life all quickening ether keeps, 
Or breathes through air, or shoots beneath the deeps, 
Or pours profuse on earth, one nature feeds 
The vital flame, and swells the genial seeds. 
Not man alone, but all that roam the wood, 
Or wing the sky, or roll along the flood, 
Each loves itself, but not itself alone, 
Each sex desires alike, till two are one." — Pope. 



THE ROUXD TOWERS. 



211 



CHAPTER XVI. 

" Woman, the poetry of Nature,'" says an elegant 
writer of the present day, " has ever been the theme 
of the minstrel, and the idol of the poet's devotion. 
The only ideas we entertain of a celestial nature are 
associated with her ; in her praise the world has been 
exhausted of its beauties, and she is linked with the 
stars and the glories of the universe, as if, though 
dwelling in a lowlier sphere, she belongedto a supe- 
rior world."' 

This deification of the female character was the 
true substance of those imaginary goddesses, so sadly 
disfigured by the circumscribed stupidity of Greek 
and Roman mythologists. Juno, Baaltis, Diana, 
Babia, Venus, Aphrodite, Derceto, Militta, Butsee, 
Semiramis, Astarte, lo, Lu?ia, Rimmon, Lucina, Geni- 
talis, Ourania, Atargatis, Sec, &c, were all but ficti- 
tious and ideal forms, resolving themselves into one 
and the same representation of that sweetest ornament 
of the creation, woman ; and the same terms being 
applied to the moon, with the same symbolic force 
and the same typical significance, illustrates the apti- 
tude of that tributary quotation, with which this 
chapter has commenced, and to the beauty of which 
the heart of every te man that is born of woman" must 
feelingly respond. 

Europa itself, now geographically appropriated, as 
a denomination, to one of the quarters of the globe, 

p 2 



212 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

was, originally, synonymous with any of the above- 
mentioned names ; and partook in the acquiescence 
paid by adoring millions to the all-fascinating object 
of so refined an allegory. 

Of all those various epithets, however vitiated by 
time, or injured by accommodation to different cli- 
mates and languages, the import, — intact and un- 
damaged, — is still preserved in the primitive Irish 
tongue, and in that alone; and with that fertility of con- 
ception whereby it engendered all myths, and kept the 
human intellect suspended by its verbal phantasma- 
goria, we shall find the drift and the design, the type 
and the thing typified, united in the ligature of one 
appellative chord, which to the enlightened and the 
few, presented a chastened, yet sublime and micro- 
scopic, moral delineation ; but to the profane and the 
many was an impenetrable night, producing submis- 
sion the most slavish, and mental prostration the 
most abject ; or, whenever a ray of the equivoque did 
happen to reach their eyes — perverted, with that pro- 
pensity which we all have to the depraved, into the 
most reckless indulgence and the most profligate 
licentiousness. 

In the limits here prescribed for the developement 
of our outline, — which even the most heedless must 
have observed, instead of being compressed, as 
intended, within the compass of one volume, could 
more easily have been dilated to the magnitude of 
four, — it cannot be supposed that I could dwell, with 
much minuteness, upon the several collateral particu- 
lars to which I may incidentally refer. As, however, 
that twofold tenour to which I have above alluded, 
may require something more in the way of illustra- 
tion, I shall take any two of the aggregate of names 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 213 

there collected, and in them exemplify what has been 
said. 

Suppose them to be Militta and Astarte. Of these, 
then, the first means appetency, such as is natural 
between the sexes ; and the second dalliance, of the 
same mutual sort; and while both, alike, typify the 
delights of love, they both, equally, personate the 
mistress of the starry firmament, whose influence 
was courted for the maturity of all such connexion, 
as the season of her splendour is the most suitable 
for its gratification. 

From Astarte (Aa-TOLprrj), the Greeks formed Aster 
(Ac-T7]p) a star, thereby retaining but one branch of 
this duplicity. — The Irish deduced from it the well- 
known endearment, Astore ; and I believe I do not 
exaggerate, when I affirm, that, in the whole circuit 
of dialectal enunciations, there exists not another 
sound, calculated to convey to a native of this coun- 
try so many commingling ideas of tender pathos, 
and of exalted adventure, as this syllabic representa- 
tion of the lunar deity *. 

Such was Sabaism, — composed of love, religion, 
and astrology : such too was Budhism, as I have 
already shown ; and Phallism, being but another 
name, equivalent with this latter, it follows that the 
whole three — Sabaism, Budhism, and Phallism — are, 
to all intents and purposes, but identically one. 

This being about to be demonstrated, a few pages 
forwards, as the oldest species of worship recognised 
upon earth, it were needless, one would hope, to 
enter into a comparison, in point of antiquity, between 

* The children gathered the wood, the fathers kindled the fire, and 
the women kneaded the dough, to make cakes for the queen of heaven. 
— Jerem. vii. 18. 



214 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

it and any of its living derivatives. But as many 
learned men, misled by that cloud which heretofore 
enveloped the subject, have promulgated the belief 
that Brahninism was the parent stock, whence Bud- 
hism, with its adjuncts, diverged as a scion, I shall, 
omitting others, address myself to the consideration 
of Mr. Colebrooke's arguments, which I select from 
the mass, in deference to a character so honourably 
interwoven with the revival of eastern literature. 

" The mythology of the orthodox Hindus," says 
this venerable and good man, " their present chrono- 
logy, adapted to astronomical periods, their legendary 
tales, and their mystical allegories, are abundantly 
extravagant, but the Jains and the Bauddhas surpass 
them in monstrous exaggerations of the same kind. 
In this rivalship of absurd fiction it would not be un- 
reasonable to pronounce that to be the most modern 
which has outgone the rest." 

His second position is, that " the Greek writers 
who mention the Bramins, speak of them as a flourish- 
ing society, whereas the Budhists they represent as 
an inconsiderable handful : therefore," &c. 

To the first I shall oppose Dr. Buchanan's testi- 
mony, who states that " however idle and ridiculous 
the legends and notions of the worshippers of Bouddha 
may be, they have been in a great measure adopted 
by the Brahmins, but with all their defects monstrously 
aggravated." 

And even, had we not this rebutting evidence, the 
inference, in itself, is decidedly weak ; for it would go 
equally to establish that Romanism is more recent 
than Protestantism, as containing a greater number of 
ceremonial observances than this latter does : whereas 
the reverse is what reason would lead us to conclude, 



THE HOUND TOWERS. 215 

viz., that ritual multiplications are the growth of lon- 
gevity, and that the retrenchment of their number is 
what reformation aspires to. 

I make a free-will offering, unrestricted and unim- 
peded, of all the value that can belong to Grecian 
historians — the Greeks, whom their own country- 
man, Lucian, so justly banters as distinguished for 
nothing- so much as a total indifference to truth ! 
But admitting them to be as veracious as they 
were notoriously not so, the intercourse, of the very 
earliest of them, with India and its dependencies, 
was much too modern, to allow their statements to be 
further conclusive, than as refers to the time being : 
and I am very ready to allow that, at the particular 
moment described^ the Budhists were in the wane, 
while the Brahmins ruled ascendant — nay, that there 
were but a few straggling votaries of the former creed 
then existing at all in that country, the latter, though 
schismatics from the ecclesiastical root, having, by 
gaining over the civil power on their side, effected 
their expulsion many ages before. 

The subterranean temples of Gyah, Ellora, Salsette, 
Elephanta, and those other monuments of piety and 
civil eminence which still shed a lustre over India, 
and which no subsequent state of the arts could 
rival, much less eclipse, owe their existence to an 
era anterior to this catastrophe. The Budhists were 
the architects when in the zenith of human power. 
The sculptures and devices establish this fact : for 
of the whole list of deities personated in those in- 
scriptions, the Brahmins have retained none but such 
as suited their purpose. These, in all conscience, 
were numerous enough ; and as the Brahmins, when 
at the helm, permitted not the introduction of 



216 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

" strange gods," it is evident that those, which they 
have in common with the Budhists, are but cull- 
ings from the " mother-church," ill-understood and 
worse interpreted ; the similarity, however, being still 
so great as, after a lapse of centuries, to give rise 
to the question of, whether the stem or the branch, 
the sire or the offspring, had the priority in point of 
time ! 

" J'ai remarque," says the philosopher Bailly, 
"que les Brames aimaient a etre appelles Paramenes, 
par respect pour la memoire de leurs ancetres, qui 
portoient ce nom*." Monsieur Gebelin is more 
explicit. " Pausanias nous dit, que Merc u re, le meme 
que Butta, ou Budda, un des fondateurs de la doc- 
trines des Paramenes, ou Brames, est appelle Para- 
mon f." 

This Paramon, who had seceded from the Budhist 
doctrine, and placed himself at the head of that sect 
who still bear his name, was the son of Budh-dearg, a 
religious denomination, most painfully inexplicable to 
inquirers into those matters, but which one, at least, 
from his acquaintance with the Irish language, should 
have better known. " I think," says Vallancey, " dearg 
is a contraction for darioga, rex supremus, which cor- 
responds with the Chaldaean darag, dux, an epithet 
given to Budya /" 

All those words, in fact, dearg, darioga, and darag, 
are one and the same, adjuncts, it is true, of Budya, 
but meaning neither dux, rex, nor supremus, except in 
as much as they were his epithets, the correct render- 
ing being red, which, added to Budh, signifies the 
Red Lingam, the Sardana-palus, the Eocad, the Penis 

* Lettres sur les Sciences, p. 202. 
t Hist. <lu Calendrier, pref. p. 14. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 217 

sanctus, the god of nature, the ruber pains, the Helio- 
go-balus, the corporeal spirit, the agent of production, 
the ti/pe of life, as it is also the concurrent symbol of 
universal dissolution. 

These several terms, which are, each and all, con- 
vertible, pourtray not only the procreative powers of 
the male world personified, but likewise its symbols, 
which were the Round Towers ; and not these only, 
but Obelisks * also, and naturally erect stones f, which, 
though not circularly fashioned, yet typified, in their 
ascension, the upward bent of all vegetable growth. 

This is the true solution of those enigmatical lit hoi, 
by which the ancients represented the bounty of Pro- 
vidence. Maghody was the name appropriated to 
him under this character ; and the import of this 
word conveying, literally, the idea of the Good God, 
shows the philosophic feeling, no less than it does the 
religious seriousness, of the grateful contrivers J. And 
while reminded by the thought, perhaps I may be per- 



* Obeliscum Deo soli, speciali munere, dedicatum fuisse.— Ammianus, 

•r Chinenses et Indi, prseter imagines in pagodis et delubris, prse- 
grandes aliquando etiam integras rupes, presertim si natura in pyrami- 
dalemformam vergebant, in idola formari solebant. — Hyde. 

% Is it not pitiable, therefore, to hear Mr. Deane, in the last volume of 
the Transactions of the Society of Antiquaries, London, ascribe the 
erection of those obelisks which he met in Britanny, to the following 
text? viz., — " Behold Saul lay sleeping within the trench, and his 
spear stuck in the ground at his bolster." — 1 Sam. xxvi. 7. 

When Captain Pyke landed in the island of Elephanta, near Bombay, 
he found in the midst of a Gentoo temple a low altar, on which was 
placed a large polished stone, of a cylindrical form, standing on its base, 
the top rounded, or convex ; they called it Mahody, — that the name of 
the inconceivable God was placed under it aloof from profanation. 

Launder, in his Voyage to India, p. 81, saw one erected in a tank of 
water. Herodian tells us he saw a similar stone, round at the bottom, 
diminishing towards the top in a conical form, at Emessa, in Phoenicia, 
and that the name they gave it was Heliogabalus. — Vallancey. 



218 THE ROUND TO AVERS. 

mitted, with humble deference, to suggest to literary 
gentlemen occupied in the translation of Eastern 
manuscripts, that whenever they meet with any pro- 
per name of the inconceivable Godhead, or of any 
place or temple devoted to his use, and beginning 
with the word Magh ; such as MagA-Balli-Pura*; 
they should not render Magh by great — which hitherto 
had been the practice — but by good ; as it is not the 
power of the divinity that is thereby meant to be 
signified, but his bounty : such as his votaries chiefly 
supplicated, and such as Avas most influential to 
ensure their fealty. 

" Christnah, the Indian Apollo, is the darling," 
says Archer, " of the Hindoo ladies ; and in his 
pranks, and the demolishing pitchers of milk, or milk- 
pitchers, has acquired a fame infinitely surpassing 
that enjoyed by the hero of the agreeable ditty en- 
titled Kilty of Coleraine ! " 

I confess I do not understand the levity of tempe- 
rament which betrays itself in this Avitticism. For 
mv part I cannot contemplate any form of religion 
without a sensation of awe. There may be much 
imposture, much also of hypocrisy, and no small share 
of self-delusion amongst individuals of every sect, but 
sincerity will be found in the aggregate of each : 
and where certainty is not attainable by finite com- 
prehensions, nay, Avhere unity is incompatible with 
freedom of thought and will, it avouM more become 
us, methinks, to make alloAvance for each other's 
weaknesses, than to vilify any worship, which, after 
all, may only differ from our own as to mode. Chris- 
tianity, beyond a question, does not inculcate such 
intolerance. The true folloAver of that faith recog- 

* I. e. the Good- Baal Poor. 






! 1 1 E R 1 N D TOW EKS, 219 

nizes in every altar an evidence of common piety ; 
perceives in every articulation of the name of Lord, a 
mutual sense of dependence and a similar appeal for 
succour ; and taking these as inlets into the character 
of the supplicant, he traces an approximation to that 
hope whereby he is himself sustained, and rejoices in 
the discovery . yet is it no less true, that, when, super- 
added to these generalities, he beholds the " image" 
of his Creator, acknowledging the mission of the 
second Godhead, and by reliance on the all-fulness 
of his immaculate atonement, immersed in the waters 
of regenerating grace, his bosom expands with more 
gladness, and he welcomes the stranger as a brother. 
That the rebuke here intended is not gratuitous or 
uncalled for, I refer to the testimony of Sir William 
Jones, who, with some infusion, I regret, of the same 
irony and incredulity, offers the following portrait, the 
result of tardy conviction, of the super-human quali- 
fications of this identical Christnah, viz., — " The 
prolix accounts of his life are filled with narratives 
of a most extraordinary kind, and most strangely 
variegated. This incarnate deity of Sanscrit romance 
was not only cradled, but educated among shep- 
herds. A tyrant, at the time of his birth, ordered all 
the male infants to be slain. He performed amazing 
but ridiculous miracles, and saved multitudes partly 
by his miraculous powers, and partly by his arms : 
and raised the dead, by descending for that purpose 
into the infernal regions. He was the meekest and 
best tempered of beings ; washed the feet of the 
Brahmans, and preached indeed sublimely, but always 
in their favour. He was pure and chaste in reality, 
but exhibited every appearance of libertinism. Lastly, 
he was benevolent and tender, and yet fomented and 
conducted a terrible war." 



220 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Mahony, also, is a reluctant witness to the same 
effect. " The religion of Bhoodha,' 1 says he, " as far 
as I have had any insight into it, seems to be founded 
on a mild and simple morality. Bhoodha has taken 
for his principles wisdom, justice, and benevolence ; 
from which principles emanate ten commandments, 
held by his followers as the true and only rule of 
their conduct. He places them under three heads, 
thought, word, and deed ; and it may be said that the 
spirit of them is becoming and well-suited to him, 
whose mild nature was first shocked at the sacrifice of 
cattle *." 

I have already shown that Budha is but a title, 
embodying an abstract ; that, therefore, it was not 
limited to one individual, but applied indiscriminately 
to a series. As I shall soon bring this succession 
nearer to our own fire-hearths, and in a way, perhaps, 
which may, else, electrify over-sensitive nerves, it may 
be prudent that I should premise another citation, 
descriptive of an answer, made by a dignitary of their 
creed, to the last-mentioned author upon his enunci- 
ating a principle of the Hindoo doctrine. " The Hin- 
doos," rejoined the priest, " must surely be little ac- 
quainted with this subject, by this allusion to onlv 
one (incarnation). Bhoodha, if they mean Bhoodha 
Dhannan Raja, became man, and appeared as such 
in the world at different periods, during ages before 
he had qualified himself to be a Bhoodha. These 
various incarnations took place by his supreme will 
and pleasure, and in consequence of his superior 
qualifications and merits. I am therefore inclined 

* Wilford, in like manner, after a more mature acquaintance with the 
system, says, " I beg leave here to retract what I said in a former Essaj 
on Egypt, concerning the followers of Buddha."' 



THE R0UXD TOWERS. 221 

to believe, that the Hindoos, who thus speak of 
the incarnation of a Bhoodha, cannot allude to 
him whose religion and law I preach, who is now a 
resident of the hall of glory, situated above the 
twenty-sixth heaven." 

Now it is stated in the Puranas, that a giant, named 
Sancha-mucha-naga in the shape of a snake, with a 
mouth like a shell, and whose abode was in a shell, 
having two countenances, was killed by Christnah ; 
and as this irresistibly directs our reflection to the 
early part of the book of Genesis, I shall adduce what 
Mr. Deane has set forth on this latter head. 

"The tradition of the serpent," says he, " is a 
chain of many links, which, descending from Para- 
dise, reaches, in the energetic language of Homer, 

To(7<70V £VE§G' a.'i(i£CO, OGOV OUQ<X.MOS EST OUTtO JOt'lDS, 

but conducts, on the other hand, upwards to the pro- 
mise, that ' the seed of the woman should bruise the 
serpent's head.'. . . . The mystic serpent entered into 
the mythology of every nation, consecrated almost 
every temple, symbolized almost every deity, was 
imagined in the heavens, stamped upon the earth, 
and ruled in the realms of everlasting sorrow .... This 
universal concurrence of traditions proves a common 
source of derivation, and the oldest record of the 
legend must be that upon which they are all founded. 
The most ancient record of the history of the serpent- 
tempter is the book of Genesis ! In the book of 
Genesis, therefore, is the fact from which almost every 
superstition, connected with the mythological serpent, 
is derived *." 

That u the oldest record of the legend must be that 

* Observations on Drakonfcia. London, 1833. 



222 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

upon which they are all founded," no one can gainsay, 
inasmuch as the parent is always senior to the off- 
spring : but it is not quite such a truism that " the 
most ancient record of the history of the serpent- 
tempter is the book of Genesis." Before a line of it 
was ever written, or its author even conceived, the 
allegory of the serpent was propagated all over the 
world. Temples, constructed thousands of years prior 
to the birth of Moses, bear the impress of its history. 
" The extent and permanence of the superstition," 
says the erudite ex-secretary of the Asiatic Society, 
now Professor of Sanscrit in the University of Ox- 
ford, " we may learn from Abulfazl, who observes 
that in seven hundred places there are carved figures 
of snakes, which they worship. There is, likewise, 
reason to suppose that this worship was diffused 
thoughout the whole of India, as, besides the nume- 
rous fables and traditions relating to the Nagas, or 
snake gods, scattered through the Puranas, vestiges 
of it still remain in the actual observances of the 
Hindus." 

To explore the origin, however, of this Ophite 
veneration, all the efforts of ingenuity have hitherto 
miscarried : and the combination of solar symbols 
with it, in some places of its appearance, has, instead 
of facilitating, augmented the difficulty. " The 
portals of all the Egyptian temples," observes the 
Gentleman's Magazine, " are decorated with the same 
hierogram of the circle and the serpent. We find it 
also upon the temple of Naki Rustan, in Persia, upon 
the triumphal arch at Pechin, in China ; over the 
gates of the great temple of Chaundi Teeva, in Java, 
upon the walls of Athens, and in the temple of 
Minerva, at Tegea — for the Medusa's head, so com- 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



223 



mon in Grecian sanctuaries, is nothing more than 
the Ophite hierogram, filled up by a human face. 
Even Mexico^ remote as it was from the ancient 
world, has preserved, with Ophiolatreia, its universal 
symbol *." 

How would Mr. Deane account for this commix- 
ture ? " The votaries of the sun," says he, " having 
taken possession of an Ophite temple, adopted some 
of its rites, and thus in process of time arose the com- 
pound religion, whose god was named Apollo." 

But, sir, the symbols are coeval, imprinted together 
upon those edifices, at the very moment of their con- 
struction ; and, therefore, " no process of time " was 
required to amalgamate a religion whose god (it is 
true) was Apollo, but which was already insepa- 
rable, and, though compound, one. 

I have before established the sameness of design 




which belonged, indifferently, to solar worship and to 



* The Mexican hierogram is formed by the intersecting of two great 
serpents which describe the circle with their bodies, and have each a. 
human head in its mouth. 



224 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

phallic. I shall, ere long, prove that the same cha- 
racteristic extends, equally, to ophiolatreia ; and if they 
all three be identical, as it thus necessarily follows, 
where is the occasion for surprise at our meeting 
the sun, phallus, and serpent, the constituent symbols 
of each, embossed upon the same table, and grouped 
under the same architrave? 

" Here," says a correspondent, in the Supplement 
to the Gentleman s Magazine of August last, " we 
have the umbilicated moon in her state of opposition 
to the sun, and the sign of fruitfulness. She was 
also, in the doctrines of Sabaism, the northern gate, 
by which Mercury conducted souls to birth, as men- 
tioned by Homer in his description of the Cave of the 
Nymphs, and upon which there remains a commen- 
tary by Porphyry. Of this cave Homer says : — 

' Fountains it had eternal, and two gates, 
The northern one to men admittance gives ; 
That to the south is more divine — a way 
Untrod by men— f immortals only known.' 

<c The Cross, in gentile rites, was the symbol of 
reproduction and resurrection. It was, as Shaw 
remarks, ' the same with the ineffable image of 
eternity that is taken notice of by Suidas.' The 
Crescent was the lunar ship or ark that bore, in Mr. 
Faber's language, the Great Father and the Great 
Mother over the waters of the deluge ; and it was 
also the emblem of the boat or ship which took aspi- 
rants over the lakes or arms of the sea to the Sacred 
Islands, to which they resorted for initiation into the 
mysteries ; and over the river of death to the man- 
sions of Elysium. The Cockatrice was the snake- 
god. It was also the basilisk or cock-adder. ' Habet 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 225 

caudcm ut coluber, residuum vero corpus ut gallus." 
The Egyptians considered the basilisk as the emblem 
of eternal ages : 'esse quia vero videtur £a>% xupisusiv 
xa) Quvutov, ex auro conformatum capitibus deorum 
appingebant iEgyptii.' What relation had this with 
the Nehustan or Brazen Serpent, to which the 
Israelites paid divine honours in the time of Heze- 
kiah? What is the circle with the seasons at the 
equinoxes and solstices marked upon it ? — the signs 
of the four great Pagan festivals celebrated at the 
commencement of each of these seasons? The corner 
of the stone which is broken off, probably contained 
some symbol. I am not hierophant enough to un- 
riddle and explain the hidden tale of this combina- 
tion of hieroglyphics. We know that the sea-goat 
and the Pegasus on tablets and centeviral stones, 
found on the walls of Severus and Antoninus, were 
badges of the second, and the boar of the twentieth 
legion ; but this bas-relief seems to refer, in some 
dark manner, to matters connected with the ancient 
heathen mysteries. The form of the border around 
them is remarkable. The stone which bears them 
was, I apprehend, brought in its present state from 
Vindolana, where, as I have observed, an inscription 
to the Syrian goddess was formerly found. The sta- 
tion of Magna, also, a few years since, produced a 
long inscription to the same goddess in the Iambic 
verse of the Latin comedians ; and a cave, containing 
altars to Mithras, and a bust of that god, seated 
between the two hemispheres, and surrounded by the 
twelve signs of the Zodiac, besides other signa and 
dyoik[xaTa. of the Persian god, was opened at Borco- 
vicus only about ten years since. These, therefore, 
and other similar remains, found in the Roman sta- 
rt 



226 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

tions in the neighbourhood of Vindolana, induce me to 
think, that the symbols under consideration, and now 
for the first time taken notice of, were originally 
placed near the altars of some divinity in the station 
of the Bowers-in-the-Wood. I know of no establish- 
ment that the Knights Templars had in this neighbour- 
hood." 

The modesty of " V. W." is not less than his dili- 
gence ; and both, I consider, exemplary and great. 
But he will excuse me, when I tell him, that the 
Cross, the Crescent, and the Cockatrice, are still 
maiden subjects after his hands. Neither Faber, 
Shaw, nor Suidas, pretend even to approach those 
matters, save in their emblematic sense ; and, as every 
emblem must have a substratum, I, for one, cannot 
content myself with that remote and secondary know- 
ledge, which is imparted by the exoteric type, but must 
enter the penetralia, and explore the secrets of the 
eisoteric temple. 

" As an old serpent casts his scaly vest, 

Wreaths in the sun, in youthful glory dress'd ; 
So, when Alcides' mortal mould resign'd, 
His better part enlarg'd, and grew refin'd ; 
August his visage shone ; almighty Jove 
In his swift car his honour'd offspring drove : 
High o'er the hollow clouds the coursers iiy, 
And lodge the hero in the starry sky *." 

* Ovid. 



227 



CHAPTER XVII. 



" Chilly as the climate of the world is growing — 
artificial and systematic as it has become — and un- 
willing as we are to own the fact, there are few 
amongst us but who have had those feelings once 
strongly entwined around the soul, and who have felt 
how dear was their possession when existing, and 
how acute the pang which their severing cost. 
Fewer still were the labyrinths unclosed in which 
their affections lay folded, but in whose hearts the 
name of woman would be found, although the rough 
collision with the world may have partially effaced it." 

This instinctive influence, which the daughters of 
Eve universally exercise over the sons of Adam, is 
not more irresistible in the present day, than it 
proved in the case of their great progenitor. Love, 
however disguised — and how could it be more beauti- 
fully than by the scriptural penman? — love, in its 
literal and all-absorbing seductiveness, was the simple 
but fascinating aberration couched under the figure 
of the forbidden apple. 

All the illusions of fancy resolve themselves into 
this sweet abyss. The dreams of commentators may, 
therefore, henceforward be spared ; the calculations 
of bookmakers, on this topic, dispensed with : what- 
ever be my fate, one consolation, at least, awaits me, 

q 2 



228 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

that, in addition to the Towers, I shall have expounded 
the mysteries of Genesis. 

To begin with the Tree of Knowledge — what, do 
you suppose, was it, in actual earnest? Verily, neither 
more nor less than the all-enchanting 1 Budhl and that 
verbal phantasmagoria, to which I have some time 
ago alluded, can be illustrated, nowhere better, than 
in that refined, and hitherto inexplicable, allegory to 
which this term gave birth. 

In the Irish language, which, as being that of 
ancient Persia, or Iran, must be the oldest in the 
world, and of which the Hebrew, brought away by 
Abraham, from Ur of the Chaldees, is but a dis- 
tant and imperfect branch, — well, in this primordial 
tongue, the nursery at once of science, of religion, 
and of philosophy, all mysteries, also, have been ma- 
tured : and it will irrefutably manifest itself, that 
in it was exclusively woven that elegantly-wrought 
veil, of colloquial illusiveness, which shrouds the 
nature of our first parents' downfall. 

How, think you, was this accomplished ? By 
assigning to certain terms a two-fold signification, of 
which one represented a certain passion, quality, or 
virtue, and the other its sensible index. To the latter 
alone had the multitude any access; while the sanctity 
of the former was guarded against them, by all the 
terrors of religious interdicts. 

For instance, in the example before us, Budh, 
or Fiodh — which is the same thing — means, pri- 
marily, lingam, and, secondarily, a tree. Of these, the 
latter, which was the popular acceptation, was only 
the outward signal of the former, which was the in- 
ward, mystified, passion, comprehended only by the 
initiated. When, therefore, we are told that Eve 



[To face page 229. 




FROM THE RUINS OF THE FALENCIAN CITY. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 229 

was desired not to taste of the tree, i. e., Budh, we 
are to understand that she was prohibited what Budh 
meant in its true signification, viz., lingam : in other 
words, that when cautioned against the Budk, it 
was not an insensible tree, its symbolic import, that 
was meant thereby, but the vital phallus, its animate 
prototype : — that, in short, " missis ambagibus," the 
word Budh was to be taken, not figuratively, but 
literally. 

Again, in this cradle of literary wonders — the Irish 
language — every letter in its alphabet expresses some 
particular tree ; but its second, Beth, — whence the 
Beta of the Greeks, and a formative only of Budh, the 
radix — signifies — in addition to the tree which it 
represents * — knowledge, also ! And here, obvious as 
light, and impregnable to contradiction, you have the 
treejof knowledge, in natural nakedness, divested of all 
the mystery of pomiferous verbiage, and identified in 
attributes, as in prolific import, with the name and essence 
of the sacred Budh ! 

But what had the serpent to do with the business ? 
Only as an actor in the general symbolisation : the 
introduction of him being but an allegorical mode of 
saying that the Budh,, i. e., the sensual propensity — 
of which the serpent is the most expressive type, 
being notoriously the most lustful of living creatures 
— had made her deviate from the paths of purity f . 

* The Betula, or birch-tree. 

•)• Were additional proof required that this is the true solution of the 
Mosaic myth, respecting the forbidden apple, it is irresistibly offered to 
any one who will see that relic of Eastern idolatry, presented by Lieu- 
tenant Colonel Ogg to the Museum of the East India Company, Lon- 
don, which consists of a tabular frame of white marble, furnished with a 
fountain, and emblematically stored with religious devices ; the most 
extraordinary of which is a representation of the Lingam and Ypni in 



230 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Here then we have, at length, arrived at the foun- 
tain head and source of the mystery of Budhism. Eve 
herself, I emphatically affirm, was the very first Bud- 
hist. And, accordingly, we find that, in former 
ages, women universally venerated the Budh, and 
carried images of it, as a talisman, around their necks 
and in their bosoms. 

But if Eve was the first Budhist, the first priest of 
the Budhist order was her first-born, but apostate son 
Cain : and in his acknowledging the bounty of Budh, 
the sun, who matures the fruits of the earth, — and 
thereby recognising Jehovah only as the God of 
nature and of increase, — rather than in looking forward 
by faith to the redemption by blood, as a different 
sacrifice would have intimated, — consisted " the whole 
front and bearing" of his treason and offence*. 

" If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? 
And if thou doest not well, a sin-offering lieth at the 
door" — the means of propitiation are within your 
immediate reach. 

conjunction, around the bottom of which, in symbolical suggestion, is 
coiled a serpent ; while the top of another Lingam, placed underneath, 
is embossed towards the termination, conical and sunny, with four heads, 
facing the cardinal points, and exactly corresponding with those which 
grace the preputial apex of the " Round Tower " of Devenish. Those 
four heads represent the four gods of the Budhist. theology, who have 
appeared in the present world, and already obtained the perfect state of 
Nirwana ; viz., Charchasan, Gonagon, Gaspa, and Goutama. And the 
entire coincidence between this Lingam and the characteristics of our 
Round Towers is such as to convince the most obdurate sceptic, even 
had I not put the question beyond dispute before, that they were uni- 
form in design, and identical in purpose. 

* The offerings made at the present day are precisely of the same 
kind. " Boiled rice, fruits, especially the cocoa-nut, flowers, natural 
and artificial, and a variety of curious figures made of paper, gold leal, 
and the cuttings of the cocoa-nut kernel are the most common." — 
Symls. 



THE ROUND TOWEKS. 231 

The endearing tone, in which this is conveyed, 
bespeaks an appeal to some usage familiar to the 
party. It betokens, indisputably, that, on previous 
occasions, when Cain had acted " well," he had met 
with no rejection. — And for the truth of this, Jeho- 
vah refers to the defendant's own experience and 
self-convincino- consciousness. 

Cain, therefore, was a priest under a former dis- 
pensation ; and a favoured one too ; and his being 
deprived of this office, or, in other words, " cast off 
from the presence of the Lord," was the great source 
and origin of his present wretchedness. 

But if a priest, he must have been so to a larger 
congregation than his father, mother, and brother : 
and besides he, as well as Abel, must have had 
wives ; but the Scriptures do not tell us that Adam 
and Eve, as individuals, had any daughters ; it fol- 
lows, therefore, that the consorts of the two brothers 
must have sprung from some other parents. There, 
then, were more men and women on the earth than 
Adam and Eve : and this is still further confirmed 
by the apprehensions expressed by Cain himself, 
after the murder of Abel, lest he might be slain by 
some one meeting him. 

Yes, in the paradisaical state, before " sin entered 
into the world," the earth was as crowded with popu- 
lation as it is at present ; and Adam and Eve are only 
put as representatives, male and female, of the entire 
human species, all over the globe *. 

* Methinks I hear some wiseacre start up here and say, this cannot 
be, because man in an uncivilised state occupies more space than when 
restricted by social usages. Pray, sir, who told you that man was then 
uncivilised ? Then, in fact, it was that he may be called truly civilised, 
as more recent from the converse of his Creator. 



232 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Here I cannot do better than set the reader right 
as to the rendering of a subsequent text, which 
says, that " God set a mark upon Cain lest any one 
meeting him should kill him ;" nor can I recollect 
another instance wherein human ingenuity, while 
struggling after truth, has been more directly instru- 
mental in the dissemination of error. 

One would suppose that the setting " a mark 
upon" a person, instead of allaying his fears of being 
molested by those meeting him, should, on the con- 
trary, aggravate them, from its extraordinary aspect. 
Besides, in the innumerable fantasies which com- 
mentators have conjured up, as specifications of this 
'■ mark," no vestige whatsoever has been yet traced, on 
the human form, to justify the inference. 

We are obliged, therefore, at last, to recur to the 
truth ; and it fortunately happens, that this is acces- 
sible, by only translating the original as it should pro- 
perly be, thus, viz., " And God gave Cain a sign lest 
any meeting him, should kill him." 

The only question now is, what that sign was 
which God gave to Cain ? And to resolve this, we 
have but to bethink ourselves of his dereliction, — 
namely, the offering worship to Budh, i. e., nature, 
ov the sun: and his refusing to sacrifice, in conse- 
quence of such devotion, anything endowed with life, 
of which Budh, i. e. Lingam, — according to the double 
acceptation of the word, — was the type, as it is also 
the sig?i of Budh, the sun, — and we have infallibly 
developed the answer and the secret. 

Stamping the nature of his crime, and at the same 
time indicating that, in the now fallen condition of 
man, this badge of his revolt would be rather a 
security against trespass, and a passport to accept- 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 233 

ancc, than an inducement to annoyance, God shows 
to Cain, as much in derision as in anger, the substan- 
tial image of that deity to which he had but just be- 
fore done homage, viz., Budh ; and thereupon Cain 
goes, and, on " the land a wanderer," he erects this 
sign into a deified Round Tower. 

Perhaps the reader would like to have some col- 
lateral proofs for these startling interpretations. I 
shall give them, as convincing as the solution itself 
is irrefutable and true. 

The Maypole festival, which the Rev. Mr. Maurice 
has so satisfactorily shown to be but the remains of 
an ancient institution of India and Egypt, (he should 
have added Persia, and, indeed, placed it first,) 
was, in fact, but part and parcel of this Round 
Tower worship. May the first is the day on which 
its orgies were celebrated ; nor is the custom, even 
now, confined to the British isles alone, but as natu- 
rally prevails universally throughout the East, whence 
it emanated, of old, to us. Lest, too, there should be 
any mistake, as to the object of adoration, we are told 
in the second volume of the Asiatic Researches, in a 
letter from Colonel Pearce, that Bhadani, i. e., Astarte, 
i. e., Luna, i. e., Venus, i. e., " Mollium mater cupi- 
dinum," was the goddess in whose honour those fes- 
tivities were raised. 

Now as astronomy was connected with all the cere- 
monies of the ancients, the sun's entrance into Taurus, 
which in itself bespeaks the vigour of reanimated 
productiveness, at the vernal equinox, was the sym- 
bol in the heavens associated by the worshippers with 
this allegorical gaiety. But this event takes place a 
little earlier every year than the preceding one, by 
reason of what astronomers call the precession, so that 



234 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

at present, it occurs at a season far more advanced 
than it did at first. 

Theory and observation both concur in establish- 
ing, that 72 years is the period which the equinox 
will take to precede one degree of the 360, into which 
the heavens are divided — 2160 years, thirty degrees, 
that is, one sign, — and 25,920, 360 degrees, or the 
twelve signs of the zodiac. If, therefore, we compute, 
at this rate, the precise year at which the vernal 
equinox must have coincided with the first of May, — 
which must certainly have been the fact at the origin 
of the institution, — it will prove to have been about 
the 4000th before the Christian era, which exactly cor- 
responds with the time of Cain, and irrefutably con- 
firms the origin, which I have assigned, to the wor- 
ship of the Budh, Tower, Phallus, or Maypole. 

Mr. Maurice's position deserves to be remarked. " I 
have little doubt, therefore" says he, " that May-day, 
or at least the day on which the sun entered Taurus, 
has been immemorially kept as a sacred festival, from 
the creation of the earth and man, originally intended 
as a memorial of that auspicious period, and that mo- 
mentous event." 

It is with extreme reluctance that I would dissent 
from a writer who has contributed so largely, as the 
gentleman before us, towards the restoration of lite- 
rature ; but since we agree as to the era of the origin 
of the festival, and substantially as to its design, I 
have the less hesitation in recording my belief that 
it was not the creation of the earth, or of man, that was 
intended to be commemorated, but the commence- 
ment of a new dispensation, consequent upon man's 
defection *. 

* In fig. I, Plato 33, of Mr. Coleman's book, "is a four-headed 
Linga, of while marble, on a stand of the same, surrounded by Parvati, 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 235 

Lord, from the Shaster, quotes the following ab- 
stract, marking the opinion of the Easterns themselves, 
as to Adam and Eve having had many contempo- 
raries. This relates an interview between a different 
couple. " Being both persuaded that God had a 
hand in this their meeting, they took council from 
this book, to bind themselves in the inviolable bond 
of marriage, and with the courtesies interceding be- 
tween man and wife, were lodged in one another's 
bosoms : for joy whereof the sun put on his nuptial 
lustre, and looked brighter than ordinary, causing the 
season to shine upon them with golden joy ; and the 
silver moon welcomed the evening of their repose, 
whilst music from heaven, as if God's purpose in 
them had been determinate, sent forth a pleasing 
sound, such as useth to fleet from the loud trumpet, 
together with the noise of the triumphant drum. 
Thus proving the effects of generation together, they 
had fruitful issue, and so peopled the East, and the 
woman's name was Sanatree." 

This Maypole ceremony, under the name of Phallica, 
Dionysia, or Orgia, which last word, though some- 
times applied to the mysteries of other deities, belongs 
more particularly to those of Bacchus *, was cele- 

Durga, Ganes, and the Bull Nandi, in adoration. The size of the 
stand or tablet is about two feet square, and the whole is richly painted 
and gilt. On the crown of the Linga is a refulgent sun." In fig. 2 of 
same " is a Panch Muckti, or five-headed Linga, of basalt, of which 
the fifth head rises above the other four, surmounted by the hooded 
snake. Each of the heads has also a snake wreathed around it, as well 
as around the Argha. The Bull Nandi is kneeling in adoration before 
the spout of the Yoni." 

* And Bacchus, in reality, was but another name for one of the 
various Budhas. Even under the name of Dionysos we find him, to this 
hour, amongst ourselves. " On Sliabh Grian, or the Hill of the Sun," 
says Tighe, " otherwise called Tory Hill, in the county Kilkenny, is a 



236 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

brated, at one time, throughout Attica with all the 
extravagance of religio-lascivious pomp. Archer, in 
his " Travels in Upper India," arrived at a village 
just a few hours only after the May gaieties were 
over, and found the pole still standing. " The occa- 
sion," says he, " was one of festivity, for all had 
strings of flowers about their heads, and they spoke 
of the matter as one of great pleasure and amuse- 
ment." As, however, he did not come in for the 
actual observances, I shall supply the omission by 
detailing the form of its celebration in our own 
country. 

" Anciently," says M'Skimin, in his History of 
Carrickfergus, " a large company of young men 
assembled each May-day, who were called May- 
boys. They wore above their other dress white linen 
shirts, which were covered with a profusion of 
various coloured ribbons, formed into large and 
fantastic knots. One of the party was called King, 
and the other Queen, each of whom wore a crown, 
composed of the most beautiful flowers of the sea- 
son, and was attended by pages who held up the 
train. When met, their first act was dancing to music 
round the pole, planted the preceding evening ; after 
which they went to the houses of the most respect- 
able inhabitants round about, and having taken a 
short jig in front of each house, received a voluntary 
offering from those within. The sum given was 
rarely less than five shillings. In the course of this 
ramble the King always presented a rich garland of 

circular space, sixty-four yards in circumference, covered with stones. 
In this stands a very large one, and on the east side another, reared 
on three supporters, and containing an inscription, which in Roman 
letter would exhibit " Beli Dinosc." 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 237 

flowers to some handsome young woman, who was 
hence called ' the Queen of May' till the following- 
year." 

With this compare the description given by the 
author of the " Rites and Ceremonies of all Na- 
tions," of a similar worship as celebrated amongst 
the Banians. — " Another god," says he, " much 
esteemed and worshipped by these people, is called 
Perimal, and his image is that of a pole, or the large 
mast of a ship. The Indians relate the following 
legend concerning this idol. At Cydambaran, a city 
in Golcondo, a penitent having accidentally pricked 
his foot with an awl, let it continue in the wound for 
several years together ; and although this extrava- 
gant method of putting himself to excessive torture 
was displeasiug to the god Perimal, yet the zealot 
swore he would not have it pulled out till he saw the 
god dance. At last, the indulgent god had compassion 
on him, and danced, and the sun, moon, and stars danced 
along with him, During this celestial movement, a 
chain of gold dropped from either the sun or the god, 
and the place has been ever since called Cydam- 
baran. It was also in memory of this remarkable 
transaction, that the image of the god was changed 
from that of an ape to a pole, thereby intimating, 
(adds the good-natured expositor of himself,) that 
all religious worship should reach up towards heaven, 
that human affections should be placed on things 
above." 

Now, this mysterious Peri-Mai is but an euphony 
for Peri-Bal, that is, the Baal-Peor before explained : 
and when you remember the destination which I have 
there assigned him, you will perceive the propriety 
of his having been represented by a mast or May- 



238 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

■pole. As to the Indian legend, it only shows the 
antiquity of the rite, superadded to that religious 
investment which was meant as a shield against profa- 
nation. 

Vallancey also mentions the following additional 
custom, which he himself witnessed in the county of 
Waterford — " On the first day of May, annually, a 
number of youths, of both sexes, go round the parish 
to every couple married within the year, and oblige 
them to give a ball. This is ornamented with gold 
or silver coin. I have been assured, they some- 
times expended three guineas on this ornament. The 
balls are suspended by a thread, in two hoops placed at 
right angles, decorated with festoons of flowers. The 
hoops are fastened to the end of a long pole, and car- 
ried about in great solemnity, attended with singing, 
music, and dancing." 

The mummers, in like manner, who went about 
upon this day, demanding money, and with similar 
solemnities, as if for the moon in labour, were derived 
from the same origin. In Ceylon this practice is con- 
fined to " women alone *", who, as the editor of the 
" Rites and Ceremonies,'' &c, informs us, " go from 
door to door with the image of Buddu in their hands, 
calling out as they pass, ' Pray, remember Buddu f.' 
The meaning; is, that will enable them to sacrifice to 
the god. Some of the people give them money, others 

* " There are in India (also) public women, called women of the idol, 
and the origin of this custom is this : when a woman has made a vow 
for the purpose of having children, if she brings into the world a pretty 
daughter, she carries it to Bod, — so they call the idol which they adore, 
and leaves it with him." — Renaudot's Anc. Rel. p. 109. 

t It is generally known, that the religion of Boudhou is the religion 
of the people of Ceylon, but no one is acquainted with its forms and pre- 
cepts. — JOINVILLE. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 239 

cotton thread, some rice, and others oil for the lamps. 
Part of these gifts they carry to the priests of Buddu, 
and the remainder they carry home for their own use." 
The money collected in Ireland, on the same occa- 
sion, would appear to have been somewhat similarly 
expended, having been Cl mostly sacrificed to the 
jolly god ; the remainder given to the poor in the 
neighbourhood." 

Here, for a while, my proper cares resigned, 
Here let me sit in sorrow for mankind ; 
Like yon neglected shrub, at random cast, 
That shades the steep, and sighs at every blast*. 

* Goldsmith. 



240 THE ROUND TOWERS. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

When I cast back my eye upon this narrative, through 
the long perspective of ages which it involves, I con- 
fess I feel incommoded by some misgivings of self- 
distrust. When I consider the mighty individuals, of 
transcendant powers and almost inexhaustible resources, 
who, having reconnoitred its coast, either 'perished in 
the impotency of effecting a landing, or, more wisely, 
receded from it as impregnable, I am thrown back, as 
it were, upon myself, and impeded by the comparison 
of my own littleness. 

But if " God has often chosen the small things of 
the earth to confound the great ; " and if success in 
past undertakings be any guarantee against the illu- 
siveness of inward promise ; if the roads be all 
chalked, the posts lighted, and the sentinels faithful, 
why, then, allow the influence of petty fears to mar, 
at all events, the project of an ennobling enterprise ? 

In that cherished volume, whence our first lessons 
upon religion have been deduced, and which, as 
embodying the principles of our happiness here, and 
our hopes hereafter, has been honoured with the pre- 
eminent and distinctive appellation of the Bible, or 
Book, there occur numerous phrases of mysterious 
import, but pregnant significance which pious men, 
unable to solve, have contented themselves with 
classifying as under the head of et above reason"' — 



THE ROUXD TOWERS. 



241 



" contrary," and " according to," being the two 
other constituents of their predicamental line. 

Those conventional terms which expediency alone 
has invented, are, to say the least, arbitrary ; and 
as all men have an equal right to form a specifica- 
tion of their subject-matter, I shall, without discon- 
certing the order of the above division, endeavour, 
only, to rescue the points to which I refer, from im- 
mersion in the first class * ; or — if allowed the lati- 
tude of parliamentary elocution — to take them out 
from the condemnation of Schedule A. 

To begin, then, with the following text, viz., " The 
sons of God saw the daughters of men that they 
were fair, and they took them wives of all which they 
chose 'jV' 

What do you understand by the expression " sons 
of God?" 

His peculiar people, you reply ; such, for instance, 
as called upon his name\; or, perhaps, Seth's de- 
scendants in opposition to those of Cain, the un- 
righteous. 

Turn, sir, to the beginning of the first and second 
chapters of Job, and read what you are there in- 
formed of. 

" Now there was a day when the sons of God 
came to present themselves before the Lord, and 
Satan came also among them.'' And " Again, there 
was a day, when the sons of God came to present 
themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also 
among them to present himself before the Lord." 

Well, what is your answer now 1 or will it not be 
different from what it was before ? Can you seriously 

* That is, " above reason." 
t Genesis vi. 2. % Ibid., iv. 26. 

R 



242 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

imagine that it was any race of ordinary human 
beings that was thus denominated? And are you 
not compelled to associate the idea, with some one 
of the other superior productions, of omnipotent 
agency ? 

I will make you, sir, if you have candour in your 
constitution, acknowledge the fact. Listen — " Where 
wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth ? 
Declare if thou hast understanding ; when the morn- 
ing stars sang together, and all the sons of God 
shouted for joy V 

Here allusion is made to a period antecedent to 
the existence of either Cain or Seth. The myriads of 
revolving ages suggested by the interrogatory set even 
fancy at defiance ; nor are their limits demarked by 
the vague and indefinite exordium of even the talented 
and otherwise highly-favoured legislator, Moses him- 
self'f. And yet, in this incomprehensible inane of 
time, do we see the sons of God shouting for joy, 
before the species of man, — at least, in his degenerate 
sinfulness, — had appeared upon this surface ! 

It is manifest, therefore, that some emanation of 
the Godhead, distinct from mere humanity, is couched 
under the phrase of l< the sons of God ;" and accord- 
ingly we perceive, that, when they " went in unto the 
daughters of men, and they bare children to them," 
it is emphatically noticed, as an occurrence of unusual 
impress, that " the same became mighty men, which 
were of old, men of renown J." 

At the commencement of the verse, whence the last 
extract has been taken, you will find the name of giant 

* Job xxxviii. 

h In the beginning God created, &c. Gen. 1. i. 

% Genesis vi. I. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 243 

mentioned; and instantly after, as if in juxta-position, 
nay, as if synonymous with it in meaning, is repeated 
u the sons of God :" thereby identifying both in 
nature and in character, and proving their sameness 
by their convertibility. 

The Hebrew word from which giant has been trans- 
lated, signifies to fall : and what, do you suppose, 
constituted this apostacy ? In sooth, nothing else than 
that carnal intercourse, which they could not resist 
indulging with the " daughters of men," when their 
senses told them they were lovely *. Thus do both 
names corroborate my truth ; while both reciprocally 
illustrate each other. 

" It may seem strange," says Wilford, " that the 
posterity of Cain should be so much noticed in the 
Puranas, whilst that of the pious and benevolent 
Ruchi is in a great measure neglected. But little is 
said of the posterity of Seth, whilst the inspired pen- 
man takes particular notice of the ingenuity of the 
descendants of Cain, and to what a high degree of 
perfection they carried the arts of civil life. The 
charms and accomplishments of the women are particu- 
larly mentioned. ' The same became mighty men, 
which were of old, men of renown.' " 

And again, — " We have been taught to consider 
the descendants of Cain as a most profligate and 
abominable race. This opinion, however, is not 
countenanced, either by sacred or profane history. 
That they were not entrusted with the sacred deposit 



* Dr. Gill, very innocently, would account for it otherwise, viz. 
" either because they made their fear fall upon men, or men through 
fear to fall before them, because of their height and strength — or rather 
because they fell and rushed on men with great violence, and oppressed 
them in a cruel and tyrannical manner ! ! ! " 

R 2 



244 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

of religious truths, to transmit to future ages, is suf- 
ficiently certain. They might, in consequence of this, 
have deviated gradually from the original belief, and 
at last fallen into a superstitious system of religion, 
which seems, also, a natural consequence of the fear- 
ful disposition of Cain, and the horrors he must have 
felt, when he recollected the atrocious murder of his 
brother Abel." 

This, so far as it goes, is satisfactory enough ; but 
it is groping in the dark, and without a pilot. A few 
pages, in the distance, will, however, bring us to the 
right understanding of these points also : meanwhile, 
I return to the Mosaical record, for the insight therein 
afforded into the history of Cain. 

We are told, then, that he " knew his wife, and 
she conceived and bare Enoch .*" and as this name 
signifies initiation in sacred rites, as well as it does an 
assembly of congregated multitudes — in which latter 
sense, it was accurately applied to the " city" wkich 
he had " builded" — it shows that the new religion 
bade fair for perpetuity. 

Irad, the name of Enoch's son, proves the crown- 
ing finish of the matured ceremonial, for intimating, 
as it does, consecrated to God, we are naturally led to 
connect its bearer with the profession of that worship 
which his name represented. 

As Irad signifies consecrated to God, so Iran does 
the land of those so consecrated ; and, accordingly, we 
may be assured, that it was in that precise region that 
the Budhists had first established the insignia of their 
empire *. 

* Philosophers will ultimately repose in the helief, that Asia has been 
the principal foundry of the human kind ; and Iran, or Persia, will be 
considered as one of the cradles from which the species took their de- 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 245 

Let us, now, inquire what light will the Dabistan 
afford to our labours. It is known that Sir John 
Malcolm was no ready convert to its merits ; his 
abridgement of it, therefore, cannot be suspected of 
any colouring ; and, as I like the testimony of re- 
luctant witnesses, I shall even make him the inter- 
preter of its recondite contents. 

" In almost all the modem accounts of Persia," says 
he, " which have been translated from Mahomedan 
authors, Kaiomurs is considered the first king of that 
country : but the Dabistan, a book professedly com- 
piled from works of the ancient Guebrs, or worship- 
pers of fire, presents us with a chapter on a succession 
of monarchs and prophets who preceded Kaiomurs. 
According to its author the Persians, previous to the 
reign of Kaiomurs, and consequently long before the 
mission of Zoroaster, venerated a prophet called Mah- 
abad, or the Great (rather the Good) Abad, whom 
they considered as the father of men. We are told 
in the Dabistan that the ancient Persians deemed it 
impossible to ascertain who were the first parents of the 
human race. The knowledge of man, they alleged, 
was quite incompetent to such a discovery : but they 
believed, on the authority of their books, that Mah- 
abad was the person left at the end of the last great 
cycle, and consequently the father of the present 
world. The only particulars they relate of him are, 
that he and his wife, having survived the former cycle, 
were blessed with a numerous progeny, who inhabited 
caves and clefts of rocks, and were uninformed of 

parture to people the various regions of the earth. — Dr. Barton, Trans. 
Phil. Soc. Philad. vi. p. 1. 

It follows that Iran or Persia, (I contend for the meaning, not the 
name,) was the central country which we sought. — Sir W. Jones, Asiatic 
Researches. 



246 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

both the comforts and luxuries of life : that they 
were at first strangers to order and government, but 
that Mah-abad, inspired and aided by Divine Power, 
resolved to alter their condition ; and, to effect that 
object, planted gardens, invented ornaments, and forged 
weapons. He also taught men to take the fleece 
from the sheep, and to make clothing; he built cities, 
constructed palaces, fortified towns, and introduced 
among his descendants all the benefits of art and 
commerce. 

" Mah-abad had thirteen successors of his own fa- 
mily ; all of whom are styled Abad, and deemed 
prophets. They were at once the monarchs and the 
high priests of the country ; and during their reigns, 
the world, we are informed, enjoyed a golden age, 
which was, however, disturbed by an act of Azer- 
abad, the last prince of the Mahabadean dynasty, 
who abdicated the throne, and retired to a life of 
solitary devotion. 

" By the absence of Azer-abad, his subjects were 
left to the free indulgence of their passions, and every 
species of excess was the consequence. The empire 
became a scene of rapine and of murder. To use the 
extravagant expression of our author (the Dabistan), 
the mills, from which men were fed, were turned by the 
torrents of blood that flowed from the veins of their 
brothers ; every art and science fell into oblivion ; the 
human race became as beasts of prey, and returned to 
their former rude habitations in caverns and mountains. 

" Some sages, who viewed the state of the empire 
with compassion, intrcated Jy-Affram, a saint-like, 
retired man, to assume the government. This holy 
man, who had received the title of Iy (pure), from his 
pre-eminent virtues, refused to attend to their request, 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 247 

till a divine command, through the angel Gabriel, led 
him to consent to be the instrument of restoring 
order, and of reviving the neglected laws and insti- 
tutions of Mah-abad. Iy-AfFram founded a new 
dynasty, which was called the Iy-abad; who, after 
a long and prosperous reign, suddenly disappeared, 
and the empire fell again into confusion. Order was 
restored by his son, Shah Kisleer, who was with 
difficulty prevailed upon to quit his religious retire- 
ment to assume the reins of government. His suc- 
cessors were prosperous till the elevation of the last 
prince of the dynasty, whose name was Mahabool. 
This monarch, we are told, was compelled, by the 
increasing depravity of his subjects, to resign his 
crown. 

" He was succeeded by his eldest son, Yessan, who, 
acting under divine influence, supported himself in 
that condition which his father had abandoned. This 
prince founded a new dynasty, which terminated in 
his descendant, Yessan-Agrin. At the end of his 
reign the general wickedness of mankind exceeded 
all bounds, and God made their mutual hostility the 
means of the Divine vengeance, till the human race was 
nearly extinct. The few that remained had fled to 
woods and mountains, when the all-merciful Creator 
called Kaiomurs, or Gilshah, to the throne" 

We only now want a key to unlock the portals of 
this Magh-abadean household ; and I flatter myself 
that this, which I am about to tender, will consum- 
mate, to an accuracy, that very desirable purpose. 

Cain's immediate progeny are they which are 
included under the above denomination. Their faith 
and worship are exactly symbolised under its deriva- 
tive dress. Magh, as before explained, is good ; and 



248 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Abad, an unit ; that is, when combined, the Good 
One, or Unit, the author of fruitfulness and produc- 
tiveness — in which light alone, as all-bountiful and 
all-generous, was he recognised by this family. 

This unity of the Godhead was what was reli- 
giously comprehended under the Phallic configuration 
of the Round Tower erections ; and this, furthermore, 
elucidates that, heretofore enigmatical, declaration of 
the Budhists themselves, viz., that the pyramids, in 
which the sacred relics are deposited, " be their shape 
what it will, are an imitation of the worldly temple of 
the Supreme Being *." 

But if Magh-abadean was the name adopted by 
them with this spiritual tendency, Tuath-de-danaan 
was that which pictured them a sacerdotal institu- 
tion. The last member of this compound I have 
already expounded. It remains that I develope what 
the two first parts conceal. 

Tuath, then, is neither more nor less than a dia- 
lectal modification for Budh, which, according to the 
license of languages, transformed itself, otherwise, and 
indifferently, into Butt, Butta, Fiod, Fioth, Thot, Tuath, 
Duath, Suath, Pood, Woad ; and in the two last 
forms — of which one is Gothic, and the other Ta- 
mulic — admitted a final syllable, — which was but an 
insignificant termination, — namely, en, making Pood- 
en and Woad-en ; or Poden and Woden. 

In these several variations, and the innumerable 
others, which branch therefrom, while the sensible 
idea is preserved underneath, there is superinduced 
another of a more refined complexion. Thus, Budh, 

* An edifice of this kind, in which the relics of Budha were kept, 
near Benares, is described by Wilford as about fifty feet high, of a 
cylindrical form, with its top shaped like a dome. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 249 

while it primarily represents the sun, its type, the 
penis ; and again, its sign, a tree, expresses, also, the 
attributes of magic, science, divination, and wisdom. 

These were the consequences of that mysterious 
garb in which the priests invested the true elements 
of their religion. Being themselves the sole pos- 
sessors of its inward secrets ; and all literature and 
erudition going hand in hand, also, therewith, it was 
so dexterously managed, that a sort of reverential 
feeling attached, not only to those qualities in the 
abstract, but to the consecrated personages who were 
their depositories. Hence, while Budh came to sig- 
nify divination and wisdom, Budha, its professor, did a 
divine and wise man ; and Tuath, being only a modi- 
fication of the former epithet, Tuatha is the corre- 
sponding transmutation of the latter. 

Tuatha, therefore, signifies magicians* ; and so we 
have the first component of Tuath- de-danaans elu- 
cidated. The second requires no QZdipus to solve it, 
De being but the vernacular term whereby was ex- 
pressed the Deity ; and as I have previously esta- 
blished the import of Danaans to have been Almoners, 
it follows that the aggregate tenour of this religious- 
compound-denomination is the Magicia?i-god-almo- 
ners, or the Almoner-magicians of the Deity. 

* " Tuatha Heren tarcaintais 

Dos nicfead sith laitaith nua." 
That is, 

The magicians of Ireland prophesied 

That new times of peace would come. 
I would point your attention to this stanza, not only as confirmatory of 
the solution ahove given for the word Tuatha, hut as furnishing another 
link in that great chain of analogy, which I have traced between the 
names of Ireland and ancient Persia. Haran, in Mesopotamia, is hut 
the prefixing of an aspirate to Eran, the Pahlavi variation for Iran, the 
original name for that Sacred Land. 



250 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

As from Budh was formed Fiodh, so from Fiodh 
arose Fidhius ; and as I have before shewn that Her- 
cules and Deus were synonymous terms, and both 
personifications of the Sun, so, accordingly, we find 
that this symbolical adjunct was reciprocally appro- 
priated to one as to the other. 

I dwell upon those terms with the more impressive 
force, because that the spirit of no one of them has 
ever before been developed. Me Deus Fidhius, and Me 
Hercules Fidhius, we were taught at school to consider 
as appeals to the God of Truth, and the Hercules of 
Honour. Most assuredly those virtues are compre- 
hended under the radix of the great mysterious Ori- 
ginal ; but the dictionaries and lexicons that gave us 
those significations, knew no more of what that Ori- 
ginal was, than they did of the connexion between 
soul and body. 

Deus Fidhius, then, means God the Budha, and as 
such the All-wise, the All-sacred, the All-amiable, and 
the All-hospitable ; and Hercules Fidhius, that is, 
Hercules the Budha, is, in sense and meaning, exactly 
the same. 

The Latin word Fides, and the English Faith, are 
but direct emanations from the same communion. A 
thousand other analogies must suggest themselves 
now in consequence. In a word, if you go through 
the circle of natural religion and artificial science, — if 
you analyse the vocabulary of conventional taste and 
of modish etiquette, you will find the constituent 
particles, of all the leading outlines, resolve them- 
selves into the physical symbolization of the radical 
Budh. 

What inference, I ask my reader, would lie draw 
from the above facts? Unquestionably that ;it the 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 251 

outset of social life, mankind at large had used but 
one lingual conversation ; and as the Irish is the only 
language in which are traced the germs of all the 
diverging radii — nay, as it is the focus in which all 
amicably meet — it follows, inevitably, that it must 
have been the universal language of the first human 
cultivators — the nursery of letters, and the cradle of 
revelation. 

" How charming is divine Philosophy ! 
Not harsh and crabhed, as dull fools suppose, 
But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets 
Where no crude surfeit reigns." 



252 



CHAPTER XIX. 

The Taath-de-danaans, or Mahabadeans, being thus 
far proved as the first occupiers of Iran, it may be 
asked, how happens it that no Persian historians, 
anterior to Mohsan Fani, have noticed their exist- 
ence ? In the first place, I answer that they all have 
mentioned them, however unconsciously by them- 
selves, or inadvertently by others. And even had this 
not been the fact — had not a single syllable been 
recorded, bearing reference to their name, the remote 
era, in itself, of their detachment from that country, 
would be the best possible apology for the omission. 

The professed writers upon Persia belong all to 
a recent period ; and the magazines which they con- 
sulted, for the scanty information which they furnish, 
were either Arabs or Greeks — the former a body of 
predatory warriors, whose only insight into letters 
arose from the opportunities which their rapines had 
supplied them ; and the latter, a community who, 
insensible to the beauties of moral truth, took delight 
in distorting even the most commonplace occurrences, 
into the most unnatural incredibilities and misshapen 
incongruities. 

But independently of these causes, another more 
powerful one had, long before, co-operated. A rival 
dynasty, starting up from amongst themselves, suc- 
ceeded, by the issue of a religious revolution, to effect 
their expulsion ; and that once ascertained — the doors 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 253 

of admission ever after closed against their return — the 
victors were not satisfied with the monopoly of civil 
power, but they must wreak their vengeance still 
more, by the erasure of every vestige of the former 
sway. 

In this devastating course, the Round Towers, as 
the temples of their figurative veneration, were par- 
ticularly obnoxious ; and, accordingly, we may be 
assured, that it was owing to the durability of those 
edifices, and not to the clemency of the assailants, 
that any one of them has been able to survive the 
hurricane. 

Who, you will ask, were those destroyers? They 
were the Pish-de-danaans. And so energetically did 
they prosecute their extinguishing plan, aided, be 
sides, by the antiquity of its remote occurrence, that 
all writers upon that country, before the compilers of 
the Dabistan, have set them down as its first dynasty, 
making the Kaianians, the Askanians, and the Sassa- 
nians, their successors. 

Here I am obliged, in compliance with the justice 
of my subject, to expose an error of a gentleman, 
whom I would rather have overlooked. 

" The Tuatha-dadan of the Irish," says Vallancey, 
" are the Pish-dadan of the Persians ;" which he pre- 
tends to prove as follows : — " First, then," says he, 
" Tuath and Pish are synonimous in the Chaldee, and 
both signify mystery, sorcery, prophets, &c. : they are 
both of the same signification in the Irish • therefore 
by Pish-dadan and Tuatha-dadan, I understand the 
Dadanites, descended of Dedan, who had studied the 
necromantic art, which sprung from the Chesdim, or 
Chaldeans." 

Of a piece with this was his assertion that Nuagha 



254 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Airgiodlamh of the Irish, was Zerdust of the Per- 
sians ! And wherefore, think you, reader? Because, 
forsooth, Airgiodlamh signifies silver-hand, and Zer- 
dust, gold-hand ! Yes, but he made out another 
analogy, and it is worth while to hear it ; viz., that 
Nuagha had his hand cut off by a Fir-Bolg general ; 
while Zerdust's life was taken away by a Turanian 
chieftain ! ! ! 

This is but an item in that great ocean of incerti- 
tude, in which that enterprizing etymologist had, un- 
fortunately, been swallowed up. Having perceived 
by the perusal of the manuscripts of our country, that 
there must have been a time, when it basked in the 
sunshine of literary superiority ; yet unable tangibly 
to grapple with it, having no clue into the origin of 
its sacred repute, or the collateral particulars of its 
date, nature, or •promoters, he was tossed about by the 
ferment of a parturient imagination, without the 
saving ballast of a discriminating faculty. 

The General's work, accordingly, is one which 
must be read with great reserve ; not because that it 
does not offer many valuable hints, but because that 
its plan is so crude, and its matter so ill-digested — the 
same thing being contradicted in one place, which was 
affirmed in another, or else repeated interminably, 
without regard to method or to style — that when you 
have waded through the whole, you feel you have 
derived from it no other benefit, than that of whetting 
your avidity for a correct insight into those subjects, 
of which the author, you imagine, must have had some 
idea, but which also, it is evident, however indefa- 
tigable he was in the attempt, he had not, himself, 
the power to penetrate. 

The great praise, therefore, which I would award 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 255 

to this writer, is that, with one leg almost in the 
grave, he sat down, in the enthusiasm of a youth- 
ful aspirant, to master the difficulties of the Irish 
tongue, which, mutilated though it be, and begrimed 
by disuse, he knew was, notwithstanding, the only 
sure inlet to the genius of the people, as well as to 
the arcana of their antiquities, the most precious, as 
they are, and fruitful, of any country on the sur- 
face of the globe. 

But though his perseverance had rendered him 
the best Irishian of his age, and of many ages before 
him, yet has he committed innumerable blunders, 
even in the exposition of the most simple words ; 
and the question now in point will verify this decla- 
ration, with as much exactitude as any other that 
could be adduced. 

Tuath, then, and pish are by no means synony- 
mous ; neither do they signify mystery or prophets, 
except in a secondary light. In their original 
acceptation, they are the antipodes of each other, as 
much as male is to female, and as relative is to cor- 
relative *. 

They are the distinctive denominations for the 
genital organs of both sexes, respectively — Tuath sig- 
nifying Lingam ; and Pish, Yoni. 

I have already explained that Tuath is but a modi- 
fication of the word Budh — the final dh of the latter 
having been changed into the final th of the former, 
only for euphony ; because that prefixed to de-danaan 
the collision of the two d"s, — as J3wd-de-danaan — 
would not sound well ; it was, therefore, made Buth- 

* General Vallancey was equally ignorant as to the meaning of the 
additional words De-danaan. 



256 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

de-danaan ; and, — the initials b and t being always 
convertible, — hence became Twotf/z-de-danaan. 

The case was exactly opposite with respect to 
pish : I mean so far as the alteration of two of its 
letters is concerned. Pith is the usual method of 
pronouncing that term : nor is it, except when fol- 
lowed by a d, that it assumes the other garb. But 
as dh, in the former instance, was commuted into th, 
so th, in this latter, is still farther into sh ; there- 
fore, instead of Pith- de-danaan, we make it Pish-de- 
danaan. 

To screen those two ligaments of sexual familiarity 
from the peril of profane and irreverent accepta- 
tions, all the investiture of magic was shrouded 
upon them. The vocabulary of love and of religion 
became one and the same : mystery and enchantment 
were identified, and the negotiations of the earth, 
and the revolutions of the heavens, were blended 
with the witchery of amative sway. 

In this universality of domain, no one of those 
dear helpmates had a greater portion of honour 
assigned to it, than the other. They were equal in 
power, and alike in attributes. And to set this 
equality beyond the contingencies of doubt, it was 
withal arranged, that while each, primarily, retained 
its distinct sexual interpretation, they should both, 
secondarily, harmonise under another mutual exposi- 
tion ; and, what more appropriate one could be 
devised, than that of the injluence which they exer- 
cised? and of the veil with which they were guarded ? 

Magic, therefore, and mystery, were the two se- 
co?idary imports, in which both were united ; and the 
ambiguity thus occasioned, was what cast Vallancey 



THE ROUND TOWERS. *2o7 

upon that shoal, which proved similarly fatal to many 
a preceding- speculator. 

To exemplify — Budh, or Tuath, in its literal and 
substantive acceptation, implies the Lingam ; collate- 
rally, magic; and by convention, mystery, prophets, 
legislators, &e. Pish, in like manner, or Pith, de- 
notes, literally, the Yoni ; collaterally, magic ; and 
by convention, mystery, prophets, legislators, &c. And 
the offshoots of either, in an inferior and deteriorated 
view, such as Budh-og from the former, and Pish-og 
from the latter, intimate, indiscriminately, witchcraft, 
wizard, or witch. 

Now the words De-danaans, having been already 
illustrated as meaning God- Almoners, if we prefix to 
them, severally, Tuath and Pish, they will become 
TW^/z-de-danaans, and Pzs/z-de-danaans ; the former 
expressing, literally, Lmgwrn-God-Almoners ; and the 
latter, literally, Fom-God-Almoners ; and both equally, 
by convention, Magzc-God-Almoners. 

As we have had exhibited numerous representations 
of the homage paid to the paternal member of this 
theocracy, perhaps I may be permitted to adduce a 
single quotation demonstrative of the honours shown 
to his maternal colleague. 

" The Chinese," says the author of ' Rites and 
Ceremonies,' " worship a goddess, whom they call 
Puzza, and of whom their priests give the following 
account : — They say that three nymphs came down 
from heaven to wash themselves in a river, but scarce 
had they got into the water before the herb Lotos * 
appeared on one of their garments, with its coral 

* The Lotos was the most sacred plant of the ancients, and typified 
the two principles of the earth's fecundation combined — the germ stand- 
ing for the Lingam ; the filaments and petals for the Yoni. 

S 



258 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

fruit upon it. They were surprised to think whence 
it could proceed ; and the nymph, upon whose gar- 
ment it was, could not resist the temptation of in- 
dulging herself in tasting it. But by thus eating- some 
of it, she became pregnant, and was delivered of a 
boy, whom she brought up, and then returned to 
heaven. He afterwards became a great man, a con- 
queror and legislator, and the nymph was afterwards 
worshipped under the name of Puzza*." 

And thus we see that Budh and Pish were the 
actual regulators of the solar universe. 

Time, however, dissolved the chain which linked 
together those mysterious absolutes : or, rather, the 
zealots of each contrived to sever an attachment, 
which was intended, by nature, to be reciprocal and 
mutual \. War, devastating, desecrating war, spread 
abroad over the plain ! Human energies were evoked 
into an unknown activity ! Men's passions, always 
inflammable by the jealousy of partisanship, were 
here furthermore stimulated by the rancour of re- 
ligion ! And hearts were lacerated, and countries 
were depopulated in sustainment of the consequences 
of a physiological disquisition ! ! ! 

But what do you conceive to have been the topic 
at issue ? Verily, it was whether the male or the female 
contributed more largely to the act of generation ! — 
those who voted for the female side, ranging them- 
selves under the banners of Pish, and those for the 
male under the standard of Budh, while both equally 

* This Puzza is nothing more than our Irish Pish : and, what is 
miraculously coincident, the title of the enthusiast who annually kills 
somebody in honour of her, under the name of the goddess Manepa, at 
Tancput, is Phut, or Buth ; that is, the 'Budh of the Irish ! 

t Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall 
cleave unto his wife ; and they shall be one flesh. — Genesis xi. 24. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 259 

appealed to heaven for adjudication of their suit, by 
arrogating to themselves the adjunct of De-danaans, 
or God- Almoners. 

" Not but the human fabric from its birth 
Imbibes a flavour of its parent earth, 
As various tracts enforce a various toil, 
The manners speak the idiom of the soil." 

Whether or not, however, the result is to be con- 
sidered as decisive of the matter in dispute, one thing 
at least is certain, viz., that the PzsA-God-Almoners 
obtained the victory ; and the jBzzdA-God-Almoners 
were thrown upon the ocean ; over whose bosom, 
wafted to our genial shores, they did not only import 
with them all the culture of the East, with its ac- 
companying refinement and polished civilization ; but 
they raised the isle to that pinnacle of literary and 
religious beatitude, which made it appear to the 
fancies of distant and enraptured hearers, more the 
day-dream of romance, than the sober outline of an 
actual locality. 

I shall now illustrate a part of those truths by the 
Indian history of the circumstances, as copied from 
their Puranas, by one who had no anticipation of my 
differently-drawn conclusions, and one, in fact, who 
did not know either the scene or the substance of the 
occurrence which he thus transcribes. 

" Yoni, the female nature, is also," says Wilford, 
" derived from the same root (yu, to mix). Many 
Pundits insist the Yavanas were so named from their 
obstinate assertion of a superior influence in the 
female over the linga or male nature, in producing a 
perfect offspring. It may seem strange, that a question 
of mere physiology should have occasioned not only 
a vehement religious contest, but even a bloody war ; 

c o 

o _ 



260 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

yet the fact appears to be historically true, though 
the Hindu writers have dressed it up, as usual, in a 
veil of historical allegories and mysteries, which we 
should call obscene, but which they consider as 
awfully sacred. 

" There is a legend in the Servarasa, of which the 
figurative meaning is more obvious. When Sati, after 
the close of her existence as the daughter of Dascha, 
sprang again to life in the character of Parvati, or 
Mountain Spring, she was re-united in marriage to 
Mahadeva. This divine pair had once a dispute on 
the comparative influence of the sexes in producing 
animated beings, and each resolved, by mutual agree- 
ment, to create apart a new race of men *. The race 
produced by Mahadeva were very numerous and 
devoted themselves exclusively to the worship of the 
male deity ; but their intellects were dull, their 
bodies feeble, their limbs distorted, and their com- 
plexions of many different hues. Parvati had, at the 
same time, created a multitude of human beings, who 
adored the female power only, and were all well 
shaped, with sweet aspects and fine complexions. A 
furious contest ensued between the two races, and 
the Ldngajas were defeated in battle ; but Mahadeva, 
enraged against the Yonijas, would have destroyed 
them with the fire of his eye, if Parvati had not 
interposed and spared themf ; but he would spare 

* " There is a sect of Hindus, by far the most numerous of any, who, 
attempting to reconcile the two systems, tell us, in their allegorical style, 
that Parvati and Mahadeva found their concurrence essential to the 
perfection of their offspring, and that Vishnu, at the request of the god- 
dess, effected a reconciliation between them; hence the navel of Vishnu, 
by which they mean the os tincce, is worshipped as one and the same 
with the sacred Yoni." 

t She " made use of the same artifice the old woman, called Baubo, 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 261 

them only on condition that they should instantly 
leave the country, with a promise to see it no more ; 
and from the Yoni, which they adored as the sole 
cause of their existence, they were named Yavanas." 
It is evident that a mistake has been committed in 
the above narrative, making the victors the persons 
who were obliged to quit ! and we know from testi- 
mony, adduced upon a different occasion, that in- 
stances of such confusion were neither unfrequent 
nor uncommon *. But even admitting it to be accu- 
rate, the apparent contradiction is easily reconciled ; 
as it is probable, that the contest was protracted for a 
long period of time, before it was ultimately decided in 
favour of one party ; and, in the alternations of suc- 
cess, one side being up to-day, and another upper- 
most to-morrow, what could be more natural than 
that a colony of the Yavanas, or Pish-de-danaans, — 
which is the same, — should have fled for shelter to 
India, before that the auspices of their arms, propelled 
by the fair cause which they vindicated, had, at length, 
accomplished the overthrow of their adversaries. 

This object, however, once obtained — full mas- 
ters of their wishes — and sole arbiters of Iran — they 
were not satisfied with the mere extinction of all the 
symbols of their predecessors, — save and except the 
Towers which stood proof to their attacks — but they 
established there instead a code,, as well political as 
moral, more consonant with their own prejudices: 
and the wonder would be great, indeed, if, after this 

did to put Ceres in good humour, and showed him the prototype of the 
Lotos. Mahadeva smiled and relented ; but on the condition that they 
should instantly leave the country." 

* But such is the confusion and uncertainty of the Hindu records, 
that one is really afraid of forming any opinion whatever. — Wilford. 



262 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

triumphant assertion of female power, gratitude and 
religion should not both combine in making the type 
of that influence — the sacred crescent, or yoni — the 
personification of their doctrines ; and woman herself, 
all lovely and all-attractive, the concentrated temple 
of their divinity upon earth ! 

Such was the commencement of the Pish-de- 
danaan dynasty in Persia ; and its influence still ope- 
rating, after a long interval of time, is what the his- 
torian unconsciously describes in the following terms, 
viz. : — 

" If we give any credit to Ferdosi, most of the 
laws of modern honour appear to have been under- 
stood and practised with an exception in favour of 
the ancient Persians, whose duels, or combats (which 
were frequent), were generally with the most distin- 
guished among the enemies of their country or the 
human race. The great respect in which the female 
sex was held was, no doubt, the principal cause of 
the progress they had made in civilization. These 
were at once the cause of generous enterprise and its 
reward. It would appear, that in former days the 
women of Persia had an assigned and honourable 
place in society ; and we must conclude, that an 
equal rank with the male creation, which is secured 
to them by the ordinances of Zoroaster, existed long 
before the time of that reformer, who paid too great 
attention to the habits and prejudices of his country- 
men, to have made any serious alterations in so im- 
portant an usage. We are told by Quintus Curtius, 
that Alexander would not sit in the presence of Sisy- 
gambis till told to do so by that matron, because it 
was not the custom in Persia for sons to sit in pre- 
sence of their mothers. There can be no stronger 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 263 

proof than this anecdote affords, of the great respect 
in which the female sex were held in that country 
at the period of his invasion 



* " 



Without thee, what were unenlightened man ? 
A savage roaming through the woods and wilds 
In quest of prey ; and with the unfashioned fur 
Rough clad ; devoid of every finer art, 
And elegance of life. Nor happiness 
Domestic, mixed of tenderness and care, 
Nor moral excellence, nor social bliss, 
Nor grace, nor love, were his f . 

* Sir John Malcolm, vol. i. p. 270. 
f Thomson. 



264 



CHAPTER XX. 

But you will say that I have ventured nothing like 
proof, of the paradoxical affirmation propounded a 
short while ago, as to the Tuath-de-danaans having 
been mentioned, by all Eastern writers, in connexion 
with Persia ; and yet unnoticed, the while, by them- 
selves, not less than unheeded by their readers ? 

True : I but awaited the opportunity which has 
just arrived,, 

Are you not aware, then, how that all oriental 
writers, when referring to Budha, who was born at 
Maghada, in South Bahar, state that he was the son 
of Suad-dha-dana ? And have I not already shown 
you that Suadh and Tuath were but disguises of each 
other, and both resolvable into Budh ? 

Those first components, therefore, in each being 
the same, look at the entire compound words, Tuath- 
de-danaan, and Suad-dha-dana, and are not the rest, 
also, infallibly identical ? 

Admitting this, you reply, how could they, in that 
early age, make their way to Ireland ? which, from its 
extreme position, must have been the very last place 
they would have thought of! 

If the question refers to the route pursued, 1 de- 
cline its solution, as not necessary for my design. 
" A piece of sugar, or a morsel of pepper, in a neg- 
lected corner of a village inn, would be a certain 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 2G5 

proof,'" says Heeren, " of the trade with either Indies, 
even if we possessed no other evidences of the com- 
merce of the Dutch and English with those countries." 
And when I have already made the coincidences be- 
tween the two Irans and their inhabitants, their forms 
of worship, their language and mode of life, to be 
historical axioms, I surely cannot be expected to 
waste labour upon such a trifle, which sinks into 
nothing against evidences of the actual fact *. 

But if the length of the voyage be the obstacle 
insinuated, then would I find some difficulty to — do 
what? — keep my muscles grave: as if, forsooth, 
the adventurous sons of man could only, slowly and 
imperceptibly, and like so many ants pushing a load 
before them, introduce themselves, inch by inch, and 
in measured succession, into the diversified terra- 
queous globe spread abroad for their enjoyment ! — 
when we have direct demonstration that such was 
far from having been the case, in the instance of a 
colony, which starting from Tyre, and leaving be- 
hind, on all sides, the most inviting and delicious 
countries, planted itself down, perhaps, from the 
mere spirit of romance, in the circumscribed little 
island of Cadiz, long before Carthage or Utica had 
existence even in name ! 

No, sir, we must not be so fond of derogating 
from the ancients all participation in those embellish- 
ments which promote society. Asia was the cradle 
of the whole human race ; and thence, as its popu- 

* When history fails in accounting for foreign extraction of any 
people, or where it is manifestly mistaken, how can this extraction be 
more rationally inferred and determined, or that mistake rectified, than 
from the analogy of languages ? And is not this at once sufficiently 
conclusive, if nothing else was left them ? — Eugene Aram. 



266 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

lation overflowed, migratory herds in different states 
of civilization, and with different forms of religious 
culture, poured in their successive colonies with multi- 
tudinous inundation into the other continental lands ; 
but, with more zeal, and with stronger preference, 
into those compact little nests which have been sig- 
nificantly denominated the " Isles of the Gentiles." 

Vessels rode over the briny surges with as proud 
a canvas as now receives the gale *. The model of 
the ark would be lesson sufficient, to instruct an en- 
terprising generation in the science of naval archi- 
tecture : and we may well suppose that, of all pur- 
suits cultivated by human art, this would have occu- 
pied the very foremost regard, by a people just 
rescued, through its salutary instrumentality, from 
the desolating scourge of an all-swallowing abyss. 

" Well, then, at all events," — I fancy I hear you 
exclaim, — " you admit the story of the deluge ?" 

Certainly ; and that of Noah, and the ark, and the 
dove, and the raven. But did I not, also, concede 
the story of the giants, and of the serpent? of the sons 
of God, and of the tree of knowledge ? Nay, have I 
not put the truth of those particulars beyond the possibi- 
lity of scepticism, much more of denial? But, believe 
me, that the liquid which composed this " deluge" 
was more of the colour of claret than it was of water ; 
— that there was no more of wood or timber in the 
construction of this " ark" than there was in that of 
the " tree of knowledge" — that those two latter were 

* The merchants of Magadha formed not only a particular class, but 
also a particular tribe. It seems that they were bold, enterprising, and, 
at the same time, cautious and circumspect ; hence they are said to be 
merchants by the fathers', and warriors by the mothers' side, according 
to Mr. Colebrook's account of the Hindu classes. — Asiat. Res. i.\. j>. 79. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 267 

congenial and correspondent to each other, — in their 
configuration and intention, — and that flesh and blood 
were the elements of which they were both com- 
posed. 

For all that meets the bodily sense, I deem 
Symbolical, one mighty alphabet 
For infant minds 

Could the coincidence of measure* between the 
great Egyptian pyramid, at its base, and that of the 
Noachic ark, in ancient cubits f, have been acciden- 
tal, do you imagine ? And if not, what community 
of purpose, do you think, had been subserved by such 
numerical analogy ? 

The triangle, in the old world, was a sacred form. 
It represented the properties — capacity and dilata- 
tion — of the female symbol. Lucian, in his " Auc- 
tion," states the following dialogue as having occurred 
between Pythagoras and a purchaser, viz. : — 

Pvtii. How do you reckon ? 

Pur. One, two, three, four. 

Pyth. Do you see? What you conceive four, 
these are ten ; and a perfect triangle, and our oath. 

* See " A Dissertation on the Antiquity, Origin, and Design of the 
principal Pyramids of Egypt," &c. &c. 

t Mersennus writes thus : — " I find that the cubit (upon which a 
learned Jewish writer, which I received by the favour of the illustrious 
Hugenius, Knight of the Order of St. Michael, supposes the dimensions 
of the temple were formed) answers to 23£ of our inches ; so that it 
wants f of an inch of two of our feet, and contains two Roman feet 
and two digits, and a grain, which is i of a digit." The Paris foot, with 
which Mersennus compared this cubit, is equal to 1-nHj^ of the English 
foot, according to Mr. Greaves ; and consequently is to the Roman foot 
as 1068 to 967. In the same proportion, reciprocally, are 23| and 
25/^-. That cubit, therefore, is equal to 25 T 6 o§g- uncice of the Roman 
foot, and consequently falls within the middle of the limits 25 T s^_ and 
-jTjSj., with which we have just circumscribed the sacred cubit ; so that I 
suspect this cubit was taken from some authentic model, preserved in a 
secret manner from the knowledge of the Christians. — Sir Isaac 
Nkwton. 



268 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Now, Pythagoras, though a Samian, was edu- 
cated in Egypt; and the religious mysteries, with 
which he had been there imbued, are what is so pro- 
fanely ridiculed by this infidel scoffer. 

It is not my province to justify the ceremonial of 
the Egyptians, any further than as indicative of gra- 
titude to the Godhead : but the reflection must sug- 
gest itself to every observant mind, that they are 
never called idolaters in any part of the Pentateuch ; 
and Plutarch, in addition, positively asserts, that 
" they had inserted nothing into their worship with- 
out a reason, — nothing merely fabulous, — nothing 
superstitious ; but their institutions have reference 
either to morals or something useful in life, and bear 
a beautiful resemblance, many of them, to some facts 
in history, or some appearance in nature." 

If we investigate the secret of this Pythagorean 
asseveration, we shall find that the numbers 1, 2, 3, 
4, thrice joined, and touching each other, as it were, 
in three angles, in this manner — 



constitute an equilateral triangle, and amount also, in 
calculation, to ten. While the inward mystery, 
couched under its figure, embraced all that was so- 
lemn in religion and in thought, being, in fact, the 
index of male and female united — the unit, in the 
centre, standing for the Lingam. 

Look now at the form of the great Egyptian pyra- 
mid ; and is it not precisely that of the above tri- 
angle ? Is there not, also, an aperture into it. about 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 269 

the middle as here * ? And when to all, we add the 
notion of wells of water withinside, is not the demon- 
stration complete, that the goddess of the Lotos, the 
soft promoter of desire, the arbitress of man, and the 
compeer of the angels, was the honoured object of 
its symbolical erection f ? 

In 1 Pet. iii. 20, it is asserted that only " eight 
persons" were preserved in the ark. Let us suppose 
them to have been Noah and his wife, with his three 
sons and their wives. At a comparatively short inter- 
val, after the date assigned to this event, — at most 
but 352 years, — on Abraham's arrival in the land of 
Egypt, we find a flourishing kingdom, an organised 
police, a systematic legislature, and comprehensive 
institutions, diffused over its surface. All the other 
parts of the world, we must be ready to presume, if 
not equally enlightened, were, at least, as populous; 
and I put it to your good sense to decide, whether 
eight individuals could, within that period, not only 
procreate so plentifully as to replenish the whole 
earth, but enlighten it, additionally, with such a corus- 
cation of science, as no subsequent era has been 
since able to eclipse ? 

Indeed, the Scriptures themselves give us, else- 
where, to understand that St. Peter did not correctly 
interpret this history. " Come thou," says Genesis 
vii. 1, " and all thy house, into the ark ! ' This gra- 

* And he brought me to the door of the court ; and when I looked, 
behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto me, Son of man, dig now 
in the wall ; and when I had digged in the wall, behold a door : and he 
said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked abominations that they do 
here. So, I went in, and saw ; and, behold, every form of creeping 
things, and abominable beasts, and all the idols of the house of Israel, 
pourtrayed upon the wall round about. — Ezekiel. 

t " Inter omnes eos, non constat a quibus facta? sint, justissimo casu 
obliteratis tantse vanitatis authoribus." — Plin. 



270 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

cious invitation, at so critical a juncture, would 
have been too welcome a proffer, to be lost sight of by 
any one, who could make it available ; and must not 
we suppose that the domestics to whom the extension 
was addressed, with their several dependents and 
collateral offspring, would have been glad and happy 
to grasp at it with delight ? 

But the name of the type itself is worth a hundred 
deductions from equivocal premises. The coffer of 
the law, the coffin of Joseph, the money chest of 
the temple, are all severally translated ark, and re- 
corded in Hebrew by the word pi** aron : but the 
" ark of Noah *," and Moses's " ark of bulrushes f 
are peculiarly designated, j-qji Thebit, or rcn tebah%. 

What is the meaning of these mysterious terms ? 

" Quo spectanda modo, quo sensu credis, et ore?" 

As the Tan of the Hebrews is, indifferently, in 
power, T and Th, Thebit has as good a right to be 
spelled with, as without, an h, at the end of it, — 
and, indeed, a better right, considering the elements 
whereof it is compounded. Thebith, then, is the pro- 
per and true sound, and the mystery of its import I 
thus unravel. 

Its first syllable, The, signifies sacred or conse- 

O'Op 133 *)& ran *f?7wy * 

nn*w»B3') rann n» nvyn 

itw* rm 1331 uino*) rrao 

n»a rro*a whv nnN rron 

rittN awn rann -pa 

inDp hbn wuhw ram 

Gen. vi. 14. 
■t Exod. ii. 3. 

% The Septuagint translators, not perceiving any difference, ren- 
dered all, similarly, by the word xiGwro f ! 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 271 

crated* ; and since the letters b and p are commutable 
— bith is the same as pith, that is, Cteis or Yoni. The 
words The-bith, then, together, in all the attraction of 
truth, intimate the consecrated Cteis; or the sacred 
Yoni t / 

But Pith, itself, is only a conoersion of Fidh, — the 
initial letters P and F being always interchangeable, 
and not more so than the penultimates t and d. And 
Fidh, in its abstract and original position, such as 
we have early seen it, is masculine, the plural of 
Budh, conveying variously the significations of Lin- 
gams, trees, and bulrushes. Here, however, where it 
is feminine, its sex reversed, and the anatomy of nature 
pourtrayed by the physics of language, the idea of 
the bulrushes alone presents itself; and the basket 
in which Moses was saved from the waters, and 
which was made of such reeds, was appropriately 
denominated by this mysterious symbol, as a type of 
the virginity in which the Messiah was to be incar- 
nated, not less than of the redemption which was to 
accrue from his sufferings. 

Another stage has been thus advanced ; and lo ! 
the beautiful union which subsists, as to design, be- 
tween the results of our discoveries, and the consoling 
assurances of pure Christianity ! 

Let us now proceed a little farther in this course — 

" Sanctos ausi recludere fontes J," 

and connect these truths with the TwafA-de-danaans 
and the PzsA-de-danaans. 

* As does also Tha, To, Ti, Tho, Thu, -with their several commu- 
tables, derivatives, formatives, &c. 

t And the Valley of To-phith, in which human victims were sacri- 
ficed, thus discloses, in the symbolic secret of its shape, that the propitia- 
tion of this instrument was the grand object of the sacrificers. 

% Virgil. 



J 



272 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

" Noah was a just man," observes the scriptural 
historian, " and perfect in his generations ; and Noah 
walked with God* " 

The name of this patriarch implies literally a 
boat: the character assigned him is not so well un- 
derstood. 

To succeed in the investigation we must have 
recourse to the context : and here, the first thing 
that strikes us is the observation " that the earth was 
corrupt before God, and filled with violence ; for all 
jiesh had corrupted his way upon the earth f." 

A passage in the New Testament will be the best 
comment upon this subject, where the patience of 
God with the iniquities of mankind being at length 
exhausted, it is said, that he " gave them over to a 
reprobate mind" " to dishonour their own bodies be- 
tween themselves J." 

But Noah did not participate in those unhallowed 
abominations, and he, accordingly, " found grace in 
the eyes of the Lord§." 

We now, therefore, see the propriety of the name 
assigned to his ark || — and the intimation of approval 
conveyed by the divine command of " Come thou 
and all thy house into it," was but another form of 
the injunction elsewhere conveyed, to the same effect, 
in the words, " Be ye fruitful and multiply 5f." 

Noah, then, and Kaiomurs ** were one and the same 
person, the reformer of the human species, and the 

* Genesis vi. 9. t Genesis vi. 12. % Romans i. 20 — '24. 

§ Genesis vi. 8. || The-bith. ^ Genesis ix. 1. 

** This king is stated to have reclaimed his subjects from a state of 
the most savage barbarity. He was, we are told by our author, the son 
of Yussan-Ajum, while others call him the grandson of Noah ; all 
agree in acknowledging him as the founder of a dynasty, which are 
known in history as that of the Paishdadian. — Sir John Malcolm. 



THE ROUXD TOWERS. 



273 



first monarch of the Pish-de-danaan dynasty. Ya- 
vana was another name appropriated to him, and 
equivalent with Noah, excepting only that the former 
is literal, and the latter figurative. An advantage, 
however, arises from this difference, for when we 
know that Yauana means the yoni, and Noah a 
boat, and that both were equally characteristic of 
the same individual character, we conclude that 
the latter denomination was but the symbol of the 
former, — that, in fact, it was the lunar boat *, or the 
crescent, the concha Veneris, and the type of comfort^ 
that was veiled under the mystery of this ambiguous 
device. 

This fact once explained, you have the immediate 




solution of those " semicircular implements" so uni- 

* The Irish name for a boat is baudh, which is only a formative of 
pith. 

t Genesis v. 29. 



274 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



versal throughout this island, and which Ledwich 
acknowledges " have created more trouble to the 
antiquarians to determine their use, than all the 
other antiquities put together." 

These are all made of the finest gold, and, as 
emblems of the yoni, which was the Roman palla- 
dium, used to have been worn as breast -plates by the 
priests and sovereigns. They would sometimes, also, 
exhibit them as ornaments to the head-dress : and 
when so designed, the two terminating angles used 
to have been furnished with circular cups, whereby 
they would better adhere to the part : of such, like- 
wise, we have the following specimen *. 




Ynn is the usual mode of pronouncing Yavanna ; 

* If the reader will now turn to page 223, will he not think itprobablo 
that the symbol contained on the broken-off portion of the stone, there 
represented, must have been the phallus ? 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 

and as the veneration of posterity for the virtues 
of this legislator, at a moment when vice had 
threatened a general decay*, — led them to consider 
him a god, he hence obtained the prefix of Deo or 
Deu, which along with that of Cali, whose champion 
he showed himself, make up the romantic, emblematic, 
and nominal representation of Deucaliyun "|\ 

" Safe o'er the main of life the vessel rides, 

When passion furls her sails, and reason guides ; 
Whilst she who has that surest rudder lost, 
Midst rocks and quicksands by the waves is tost ; 
No certain road she keeps, nor port can find, 
Toss'd up and down by every wanton wind $." 

The struggles for ascendancy between contending 
parties are not the growth of a day ; still less are 
they unstained by the effusion of blood. Deluge was 
no very extravagant hyperbole to apply to such a 
carnage ; for, independently of our knowing that 
every visitation, whether by fire, water, or sword, was 
so denominated by the easterns, we have the Scrip- 
tures themselves illustrating this use of the term, in 
applying it to the description, at a far later period, 
of an equally severe and no less distressing cata- 
strophe. 

" Now, therefore, the Lord bringeth upon him the 
waters of the river, strong and many, even the King 
of Assyria and all his glory ; and he shall come up 
over all his channels, and go over all his banks. And 
he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and 

* Who can forget the fable in Ovid, dejactibus lapidibus ? 

t But as his descendants gave him his right as to the title of Deva, 
and decreed divine honours to be paid to him, we shall henceforth call 
him Deva-cala- Yavana ; or, according to the vulgar mode of pronouncing 
this compound word, Deo-cal-Fww, which sounds exactly like Deucalion 
in Greek. — Wilford. 

X Fielding. 

T 2 



27G THE ROUND TOWERS. 

go over, he shall reach even to the neck ; and the 
stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of 
thy land, O Immanuel *." 

But how, you ask, account for the marine strata, 
and other remains, found within the earth's re- 
cesses ? 

I answer, they were there, imbedded and inani- 
mate, before ever man was placed above them as a 
denizen. 

" It is clearly ascertained," says Cuvier, " that the 
oviparous quadrupeds are found considerably earlier, 
or in more ancient strata, than those of the vivipa- 
rous class. Thus the crocodiles of Harfleur and of 
England are found immediately beneath the chalk. 
The great alligators and the tortoises of Maestricht 
are found in the chalk formation, but these are both 
marine animals. This earliest appearance of fossil 
bones seems to indicate, that dry lands and fresh 
waters must have existed before the formation of the 
chalk strata; yet neither of that early epoch, nor 
during the formation of the chalk strata, nor even 
for a long period afterwards, do we find any fossil 
remains of mammiferous land quadrupeds. We begin 
to find the bones of the mammiferous sea animals, 
namely, of the lamantin and of seals, in the course of 
shell limestone which immediately covers the chalk 
strata in the neighbourhood of Paris. But no bones 
•of the mammiferous land quadrupeds are to be found 
in that formation : and notwithstanding the most 
careful investigations, I have never been able to dis- 
cover the slightest trace of this class, excepting in 
the formations which lie over the coarse limestone 

* Isaiah viii. 7 — 8. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 277 

strata : but on reaching these more recent formations, 
the bones of land quadrupeds are discovered in great 
abundance. 

" As it is reasonable to believe, that shells and fish 
did not exist at the period of the formation of the 
primitive rocks, we are also led to conclude that the 
oviparous quadrupeds began to exist along with the 
fishes, while the land quadrupeds did not begin to 
appear till long afterwards, and until the coarse shell- 
limestone had been already deposited, which contains 
the greater part of our genera of shells, although of 
quite different species from those that are now found 
in a natural state. There is also a determinate order 
observable in the disposition of those bones with 
regard to each other, which indicates a very remark- 
able succession in the appearance of the different 
species. 

" All the genera which are now unknown, as the 
Palasotheria, Anapalaeotheria, and with the localities 
of which we are thoroughly acquainted, are found in 
the most ancient of the formations of which we are 
now treating, or those which are placed directly over 
the coarse limestone strata. It is chiefly they which 
occupy the regular strata which have been deposited 
from fresh waters, or certain alluvial beds of very 
ancient formation, generally composed of sand and 
rounded pebbles. 

" The most celebrated of the unknown species be- 
longing to known genera, or to genera nearly allied 
to those which are known, as the fossil elephant, 
rhinoceros, hippopotamos, and mastodon, are never 
found with the more ancient genera, but are only 
contained in alluvial formations. Lastly — the bones 
of species which are .apparently the same with those 



278 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

that still exist alive, are never found except in light 
and alluvial depositions." 

From all which, this philosopher draws the follow- 
ing just conclusion, viz., — e ' Thus we have a collection 
of facts, a series of epochs anterior to the present 
time, and of which the successive steps may be 
ascertained with perfect certainty, though the periods 
which intervened cannot be determined with any 
degree of precision. These epochs form so many 
fixed points, answering as rules for directing our in- 
quiries respecting this ancient chronology of the 
earth." 

To return — -" God said unto Noah, the end of all 
flesh is come before me ; for the earth is filled with 
violence through them ; and, behold, I will destroy 
them with the earth *." 

Now, we see that the earth has not been destroyed, 
and this single circumstance, in itself, ought to have 
been enough to show us that the whole register was 
but figurative. The raven and the dove were indis- 
pensable auxiliaries to the structure of the allegory : 
the former typifies the massacre that prevailed during 
the period of the contest ; and the latter, in its meek 
and its tender constancy, the invariable attendant, 
besides, of Venus and the boat, characteristically pour- 
trays the overtures made for an accommodation, until, 
after a second embassy, the olive-branch of peace was 
saluted, and the cessation of hostilities was the con- 
sequence f. 

Behold, then, the folly of those dreamers who 
would make Thebilh so called, as if the ark had 
rested upon it ! Why, Sir, in the entire catalogue of 

Genesis vii. 2. t Genesis fiii. 10 — 11. 



MIL ROUND TOWERS* 27!) 

local names, there is no one half so common as that 
of Thebith and Thebcc ! And surely you will not 
claim for your ideal man-of-war, in addition to other 
properties, that of ubiquity also, by making it perch 
upon all those places, at one and the same time ! 

No, these scenes have been all denominated from 
the form of religion which they recognized, and of 
which the Pith, Yoni, or sacred Boat, was the conven- 
tional sign : as the countries of Phut, that is, But, 
and Buotan, were so designated, likewise, from their 
adopting the opposite symbol, viz., the Budh, Phallus, 
or sacred Lingam ! 

Perplexed in this entanglement, and tossed about 
in " a sea of speculation," Mr. Jacob Bryant, in some 
respects a clever man, after a fatiguing cruise of 
somewhat more than half a century, fell at last a 
victim in the general shipwreck. 

" Your wise men don't know much of navigation." 

The Gentiles, says he, worshipped Noah's ark ! Yes 
they did ; but not in the sense in which he under- 
stood it *. 

Another axiom of his is, that the deluge must have 
really happened, because that the tradition of it is 

* The following is an abstract of the Hindoo version of this allegory, 
as copied from their Puranas : — " Satyavrata, having built the ark, and 
the Hood increasing, it was made fast to the peak of Nau-baudha, with 
a cable of a prodigious length. During the flood, Brahma, or the 
creating power, was asleep at the bottom of the abyss : the generative 
poicers of nature, both male and female, were reduced to their simplest 
elements, the Linga and the Yoni. The Yoni assumed the shape 
of the hull of a ship, since typified by the Argha, whilst the Linga 
became the mast. In this manner they were wafted over the deep, 
under the care and protection of Vishnu. When the waters had retired, 
tbe female poiver of nature appeared immediately in the character of 
Capoteswari, or the dove, and she was soon joined by her consort, in 
the shape of Capotcswara" 



280 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

universal! To this, also, I chime in my affirmative 
response, and proclaim, yea. But the tradition of the 
tree of knowledge is equally universal. And though 
the ground-work of both occurred, and was substan- 
tively true, yet was the description of neither more than 
a graceful allegory ; while the salutary alarm im- 
parted under this guise, and the monitory lesson 
suggested by its horrors, in amusing the fancy, edified 
it, at the same moment, by keeping before it a picture 
of that spiritual desolation, which sin leaves in the 
citadel of the sold *. 

" Moses," says the Apostle, " was, learned in all 
the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in 
words and in deeds f ." 

Now Strabo assures us that the Egyptians of his 
day were as ignorant, as he was himself, of the origin 
of their religion, of the import of their symbols, and 
of their national history. They pretended to retain 
some evanescent traces thereof in the time of Dio- 
dorus ; but so scrupulously exact were they in the 
concealment of their tenour, that to pry into them, 
profanely, was morally impossible. 

Herodotus himself, who neglected no channel of 
information, found it no easy matter to glean a few 
initiatory scraps from them. And even these were 
accompanied with such solemn denunciations, that 
his embarrassment is betrayed when but alluding to 
their tendency. 

If, during Moses's residence at Pharaoh's court, 
his opportunities of insight were greater, it is still self- 
evident that the accomplishments which he obtained 
were more of a secular character than of a religious 

* See page 63. 1 Acts vii. 22. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 2S1 

cast — that the courtier was the first object of the 
young princess's directions, and the qualifications of 
the statesman her next ambition for her charge. The 
mysteries of the priests were too awful, and too sanc- 
tified, to be debased to the routine of a school-boy's 
rehearsal ; and even when ripening age did bespeak 
a more chastened mind, the communication of their 
contents was obscured by the interposition of an 
almost impenetrable umbrage. 

Thus palliated by types, Moses did, however, im- 
bibe from the Egyptians all the knowledge which 
they then possessed of the nature of their ceremonies ; 
and the record of the fall, the deluge, and the creation, 
are the direct transcripts of the instruction so con- 
veyed. But though it is undeniable, from their 
symbols, that the Egyptians must have been well 
apprised of the constitution of those rites, yet am I as 
satisfied as I am of my physical motion, that the fold- 
ings of that web, in which they were so mystically 
doubled, was lost to their grasp in the labyrinths of 
antiquity. 

Moses, therefore, could not have learned from the 
Egyptians more than the Egyptians themselves had 
known. He related the allegory as he had received 
it from them : and it is, doubtless, to his ignorance of 
its ambiguous interpretation, accessible only through 
that language in which it was originally invoked, that 
we are indebted for a transmission, so essentially 
Irish. 

The PzVz-de-danaan dynasty which rose upon the 
ruins of the TW£/j-de-danaans, in Iran, was itself, in 
after ages, ejected from that country. Egypt was the 
retreat of their shattered fortunes : and there, during 
their abode, under the name of the Shepherd- kings. 



2S2 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

tliey erected the Pyramids, in honour of Pith, or 
Padma-de\\, but at an age long anterior to what may 
be presumed from Manetho *. 

Previously, however, to their arrival in Egypt, 
Shinaar in Mesopotamia afforded them an asylum. 
Here it was that Nimrod broke in | : and, as I have 
before but transiently glanced at that circumstance, I 
shall now revert to it with more precision. 

Between the tenets of the PwA-de-danaans and 
those of their TW^-de-danaan predecessors, there 
was but a single point of dissentient belief. The 
language, the customs, the manners and modes of 
life of both were the same. To all intents and pur- 
poses they were one identical people. 

But as the former had imagined that the Yoni 
alone was the author of procreation, while the others 
claimed that honour for their own symbol, the 
Lingam, an animosity ensued, which was not allayed 
even by the consciousness, that each, secretly, wor- 
shipped the type of the other s creed. 

The goddess, however, prevailed in the struggle, 
and her glories in Iran were great and far spread. 
Monarchs bowed at the nod of her omnipotence, and 
the earth swelled with the gestations of her praise ^. 

* The date of those TJksi was not the only misconception this historian 
has committed. He was equally in the dark as to the place whence 
they came, and, for want of a better name, called them, at a venture, 
Arahians ! 

t See page 64. 

'J: Most of the oracles in the ancient world were hut personification?; 
of this influence — the goddess invariably being the sacred Yoni. And 
the priestesses so far prevailed upon the credulous worshippers as to 
make them believe that she actually spoke ! The oracle of Delphi, the 
most venerable in all Greece, obtained its name from the very thing — 
the first syllable De, signifying divine or sacred ; and the second phi, 
i. e., phith, yoni : the letter / having been inserted only for euphony. 
E»vcn in the Greek language this import is not yet lest. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 28-3 

" Sed ultima dies semper he-mini est expectanda ." A 
rude and a lawless swarm of stragglers, headed by an 
adventurer of commanding- abilities and determined 
heroism_, deluged, in turn, the Boatmen, or the Noa- 
chidm *, and swamped them in a flood, as sanguinaiy 
and as disastrous, as that which they had, themselves, 
before, brought upon the adversaries of their zeal. 

But it was not the bloodshed of the scene that 
affected them half so much as the insult offered by 
the erection of the Tower 'f ! And as no clue can be 
so adequate for the analysis of this enigma, as that 
which they themselves have bequeathed — for it was 
from the Yavanas or Pz'?A-de-danaans that Moses had 
been taught the fact — I shall place such before your 
eyes, in all the eloquence of a self-interpreting dis- 
syllable. 

blX2 is the name by which the scriptural record 



* As Noah was himself named from the symbolical boat, so was his 
eldest son Japheth, from its sanctified prototype. Ja-Phith signifies 
consecrated to Pith, or the Yoni. And again, his son's name, Ja-van, 
means consecrated to woman. 

t " In the city of Babylon there is a temple with brazen gates, con- 
secrated to Jupiter Belus, being four square ; and each side being two 
furlongs in length. In the midst of this holy place there is a solid 
tower, of the thickness and height of a furlong ; upon which there is an- 
other tower placed, and upon that another ; and so on, one upon another, 
insomuch that there are eight in all. On the outside of these there are 
steps or stairs placed, by which men go up from one tower to another. 
In the middle of these steps there are resting-places ; and rooms were 
made for the purpose, that they who go to the top may have conveniences 
to sit down and rest themselves." — Herodotus. 

" Tis a tower exactly round, in form of a cone, or round pyramid ; the 
diameter, or thickness at the base, being 81 feet; the circumference, or 
way round, 254^ feet; the height perpendicular likewise 81 feet, equal 
to the diameter; the height likewise, oblique, 90i feet; and the angles 
of the sides equal to those of the former design : the whole likewise a. 
mass of brick and bitumen work, amounting to 140,589 cubic feet> 
upon 5207 square." — Mark Gregory. 



284 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

perpetuates this structure *. If you put this into 
English letters, and read them regularly, from left to 
right, it will be Lidgam. But the Hebrews read in 
the opposite direction, from right to left; and that 
is the very cause of the appearance of the d in the 
word; for as Magnil — reading backwards — would 
produce a cacophony, the n of the original was left 
out, and d substituted, making Magdil : reinstate, 
therefore, the n, and enunciate the Hebrew word, 
as you would the Irish or the Sanscrit, and it will 
not only unmask the secret of this long disputed 
edifice, but be, sound, and personate, in all the nicety 
of accentuation, Lingam, and thus prevent all further 
controversy about the character of the Tower of 
Babel. 

The waies through which my weary steps I guide, 

In this researche of old antiquitie, 
Are so exceeding riche, and long, and wyde, 

And sprinkled with such sweet varietie, 
Of all that pleasant is to eare and eye, 

That I, nigh ravisht with rare thought's delight, 
My tedious travel quite forgot thereby ; 

And when I gin to feel decay of might, 
It strength to me supplies and cheers my dulled spright t. 

* Genesis xi. 4. 
t Spenser's Faerie Qucenc. 



285 



CHAPTER XXI. 

I have stated that it was from the Pis/j-de-danaans 
or Yavana philosophers of Egypt that Moses had 
learned the allegories of the Deluge and of the Fall. 
I now add, that it was by them also he had been 
instructed in that consolatory assurance which told him 
that the " seed of the woman should bruise the 
serpent's head *." 

In truth, it was this very promise made to the 
ancestors of those people in Paradise, which is but 
another name for Iran f, that gave rise to the schism 
between them and the TW£A-de-danaans. 

" Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply 
thy sorrow and thy conception ; in sorrow thou shalt 
bring forth children ; and thy desire shall be to thy 
husband, and he shall rule over thee J." 

The nature of the crime is here clearly denoted by 
the suitableness of the punishment §. But the same 
over-ruling Judge, who, in conformity with his justice, 
could not but chastise the violation of his injunctions, 
yet, in mercy to man's weakness, and seeing that 
" he also is flesh," condescended to promise that the 

* Shiloh is an Irish word, literally meaning seed, and additionally 
showing that it was in our sacred language all those occurrences were 
originally named. 

f Both words equally signify the happy country, or the sacred land. 

% Genesis iii. 15. 

$ See chap, xvii,, page 229. - 



286 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

instrument of his seduction should be also the vehicle 
of his redeeming triumph. 

" I will put enmity between thee (the serpent) and 
the woman, and between thy seed and her seed ; it 
shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his 
heel *." 

Pinning their faith upon the literal fulfilment of 
these terms, which told them that the female, as 
such, would be the unaided author of a being, whose 
healino- effects would restore them to the inheritance 
so heedlessly forfeited, their veneration for that 
symbol of divine interposition became correspond- 
ingly unbounded ; and their enthusiasm, for the prin- 
ciple of its strict verification, was what engendered 
the thought, that, in the general procreating scheme, 
the yoni was the vivijier. 

The TW^-de-danaans, or Lingajas, on the other 
hand, were not less satisfied in their security ; but 
looking upon the terms with a more spiritual inter- 
pretation, and led by the operation of ordinary phy- 
sics, to consider the question as a deviation from the 
general rule, they erected the symbol of male capability 
as the standard of their doctrine. And thus while 
the zeal of both parties shook the very frame-work of 
society, yet did they concur in all the essentials of 
their respective religions ; and even the particulars 
of that prospect by which they were both sustained, 
instead of operating as an exception to the univer- 
sality of this truth, only confirm its import. 

The Jews, who were but newly brought forward 
upon the stage, and who, in the inscrutable councils 
of heaven, were selected as the objects of God's 

* Genesis iii. 15. 



THE ROUXD TOWERS. 287 

immediate superintendence, being- informed of the 
tenour of the Paradisaical hope, abused it more wan- 
tonly than ever did the P/s/j-de-danaans or the Tuath- 
de-danaans. 

Unable to comprehend, from their narrow mental 
calibre, any agency in the form of a divine emanation, 
and yet fancying, each of them, that she would 
herself be the mother of the expected Redeemer, 
their women indulged in all the lusts of desire, and, 
where no opportunity offered for licensed gratification, 
revelled in the arms of incest. 

This alone can apologize for that intensity of 
passion, exceeding even the dictates of natural thirst, 
and unrestrained by the consideration of decency or 
consanguinity, whereof we read in the Old Testament, 
respecting the Israelitish daughters * ; while it also 
demonstrates, that the carnality of their souls did not 
allow them, thoroughly, to understand the precise 
nature of the favour designed. 

Far otherwise the case with the intellectual races, 
which they were now appointed to supersede. 

" In order to reclaim the vicious, to punish the 
incorrigible, to protect the oppressed, to destroy the 
oppressor, to encourage and reward the good, and to 
show all spirits the path to their ultimate happiness, 
God has been pleased to manifest himself, say the 
Brahmins, in a variety of ways, from age to age, in 
all parts of the habitable globe. When he acts 
immediately, without assuming a shape, or sending 
forth a new emanation, when a divine sound is heard 
from the sky, that manifestation of himself is called 
acasavani, or an etherial voice : when the voice pro- 

* Genesis xix. 31, 32, 33, 34. 



288 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

ceeds from a meteor, or a flame, it is said to be agna- 
rupi, or formed of fire • but an avatara is a descent of 
the Deity in the shape of a mortal ; and an avantara 
is a similar incarnation of an inferior kind, intended 
to answer some purpose of less moment. The Supreme 
Being, and the celestial emanations from him, are 
niracara, or bodyless, in which state they must be invi- 
sible to mortals; but when they are pratya-sha, or 
obvious to sight, they become sacara, or embodied, 
either in shapes different from that of any mortal, and 
expressive of the divine attributes, as Chrishna 
revealed himself to Arjun ; or in a human form, 
which Chrishna usually bore, and in that mode of 
appearing, the deities are generally supposed to be born 
of women without any carnal intercourse *." 

Is this repugnant to the spirit of Christianity ? 
No ; it is its counterpart. " I know," says Job, in the 
moment of inspiration, " that my Redeemer liveth "{*." 
Prophetically, you reply ; and you back the opinion 
by our Saviour's own appeal, that " Abraham saw his 
day and was glad J." 

Abraham, certainly, believed by anticipation, but 
Job by retrospection. And if you will not think my 
assertion decisive of the matter, I will produce an 
authority to which you will more readily subscribe. 

•■' And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship 
him whose names are not written in the book of life 
of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the it)or/r/§." 

It will be in vain for you to attempt to parry the 
evidence of this startling text. No visionary fore- 
sight will accomplish its defeat : no ideal substitutions 
will shake its validity. 

* Asiatic Researches. f Job xix. 25. 

;j: John viii. .06. $ Revelation xiii. 8. 



THE ROUND TOWFRS. 289 

" How it came to pass/' says Skelton, " that the 
Egyptians, Arabians, and Indians, before Christ came 
among us, and the inhabitants of the extreme northern 
parts of the world, ere they had so much as heard of 
him, paid a remarkable veneration to the sig?i of the 
cross, is to me unknown, but the fact itself is known. 
In some places this sign was given to men accused 
of a crime, but acquitted : and in Egypt it stood for 
the signification of eternal life'*''' 

" V. W." has asserted something similar f; but 
neither one nor the other has attempted to fathom its 
origin. 

" The Druids," adds Schedius, " seek studiously 
for an oak tree, large and handsome, growing up with 
two principal arms, in form of a cross, beside the 
main stem upright. If the two horizontal arms are 
not sufficiently adapted to the figure, they fasten a 
crow-beam to it. This tree they consecrate in this 
manner. Upon the right branch, they cut in the 
bark, in fair characters, the word Hesus : upon the 
middle or upright stem, the word Tar amis : upon the 
left branch, Belenus : over this, above the going off of 
the arms, they cut the name of God, Thau : under all, 
the same repeated Thau £." 

" The form of the great temple," observes Dr. 
Macculloch, " at Loch Bernera, in the Isle of Lewis, 
the chief isle of the Hebrides, is that of a cross, con- 
taining, at the intersection, a circle with a central 
stone ; an additional line being superadded on one 
side of the longest arms, and nearly parallel to it. 

* Appeal to Common Sense, p. 45. 

•(• See Chap. xvi. p. 224. 

t De Morib. German, xxiv. 

U 



290 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Were this line absent, its proportion would be nearly 
that of the Roman cross, or common crucifix." 

And then, in reply to the supposition of its having- 
been converted by the Christians into this form, he 
avers that " the whole is too consistent, and too much 
of one age, to admit of such ; while at the same time, 
it could not, under any circumstances, have been 
applicable to a Christian worship. Its essential part, 
the circular area, and the number of similar struc- 
tures found in the vicinity, equally bespeak its ancient 
origin. It must, therefore, be concluded, that the 
cruciform shape was given by the original contrivers 
of the fabric; and it will afford an object of specula- 
tion to antiquaries, who, if they are sometimes ac- 
cused of heaping additional obscurity on the records of 
antiquity, must also be allowed the frequent merit of 
eliciting light from darkness. To them I ivillingly 
consign all further speculations concerning z7*.". . . " Yet 
it seems unquestionable that the figure of a cross was 
known to the Gothic nations, and also used by them 
before they were converted to Christianity f." 

I do not know whether or not would the Doctor 
deem me an " antiquary," or if he did, in which class 
would he assign me a place. I will undertake, not- 
withstanding, to solve this difficulty with as much 
precision as I have the others before it. 

The existence of the " cross," and its worship, an- 
terior to the Christian era, being no longer liable to 
dispute, it remains only that we investigate the cause 
which it commemorates £. 

* Western Islands, vol. i. p. 184, &c. 
t Highlands, vol. iii. p. 236. 
;|: " I inquired," says Mr. Martin, "of the inhabitants, what tradition 
they had concerning these stones ; and they told me, it was a place 



Mil-". ROUND TOWF.RS. 201 

Our first aid in this research will be the notice of 
its accompaniments; and when we find that it goes 
ever in the train of a particular divinity, are we not 
compelled to connect that divinity with the idea of a 
crucifixion 1 

Taut, amongst the Egyptians, is emblemized by 
three crosses*. The Scandinavians represent their 
Teutates by a cross. And a cross is the device by 
which the Irish Tuath is perpetuated. 

But these are all one and the same name, varied 
by the genius of the different countries. The centre 
from which they diverge, &s well as the focus to which 
they return, I have shown to be Budh : and as this 
symbol of his worship is universally recognized, does 
not the crucifixion thus implied, identify his fate with 
that of the " Lamb slain from the beginning of the 
world t?" 

The Pythonic allegory which the Greeks have so 
obscured, in reality originated in this religious trans- 
action. For what is their fable ? Is it not that Apollo 
slew with his arrow the serpent Python? And as 
Apollo means son of the Sun, is not the substance of 
the whole, that the offspring of a virgins womb — that 
is, an emanation of the Sun, or Budh — overcame by his 

appointed for worship in the time of heathenism ; and that the chief 
Druid stood near the big stone in the centre, from whence he addressed 
himself to the people that surrounded him." 

* United at the feet in this manner \-~ T "-] • The jewel in the free- 
masons royal arch is thus formed. Noah was a freemason ; and being 
the inventor of that mysterious and sacredly-religious ceremony, called 
the Deluge, we may be satisfied that all the secrets of that body bear 
reference to my developments. I look upon their institution as most 
solemn and majestically sublime. 

t In the accounts transmitted to us of the various Buddhas, no term 
occurs more commonly as descriptive of their innocence and their meek- 
ness than that of lamb. 

u 2 
I 



"292 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

own death — typified by an arrow — sin and sensuality, 
of which the serpent, i. e. pith, is the symbol ? 

We are now prepared for the reception of that 
chronicle, transmitted through the Puranas, and 
noticed already at page 221 ; viz., that a " giant, 
named Sancha-mucha-naga, in the shape of a snake, 
with a mouth like a shell, and whose abode was in a 
shell, having two countenances, was killed by Christnah." 

The very name of this allegoric " giant " indicates 
the mysterious snake — his being in the form of a 
snake is but the personification of sensuality — his hav- 
ing a mouth like a shell alludes to the concha Veneris, 
or the Pith — his having his abode in that shell denotes 
its being the seat of temptation — his having two coun- 
tenances implies the disguise which sin assumes — and 
his being slain by Christnah denotes that the Son of 
God, by mortification and self denial, and the ?nost rigid 
abstinence from all worldly pleasures, verified, in his 
own person, the promise made in Paradise, and for 
the minor disquietudes which guilt entails — expressed 
by the " heel" being " bruised." by the " serpent," — 
inflicted a blow, which laid low his empire, and 
stamped the signal of victory over his " head *." 

" Ye search the Scriptures," says our Saviour, " for 
in them ye think ye have eternal life : and they are 
they which testify of me f." 

Testification can be made only in the case of a past 
occurrence. It is never used in the way of prophecy. 
And in conformity with its true import, you will find, 
from Genesis to Revelation, the concurrent tenor of 
the Sacred Volume giving proof to the fact of Christ's 
former appearance upon the earth as man ! 

But suppose me for a moment to descend from this 

* Gen. iii. 15. * Luke iii. 39. 



THE ROUXD TOWERS. 293 

position, and view those previous manifestations as 
ordinary subjects of history, then hear an outline 
of what is transmitted to us respecting one of them. 

Chanakya, Zacha, or, as our registers have it, 
Macha*, one of the personifications of Budh, the 
general appellative of those heaven-sent devotees, 
was so startling a paragon of human impeccability, as 
to inspire his followers with the conviction, of his 
beino- an incarnation of the Godhead. 

He is stated to have been the son of one of the 
most powerful of eastern kings ; but, according to 
their preconceived notions of the future Redeemer, 
born of his mother without any knowledge of the 
other sex. 

The circumstances attendant upon his infantine 
education, and the precocity of his parts, favoured an 
inauguration upon which their fancies had been long- 
riveted. After a laborious ordeal of pious austerity, 
not without miraculous proofs and other intimations 
of Divine approval, he was duly admitted to the 
honour of canonization, and entered, accordingly, 
upon his task of consigned Saviour of the world. 

The encounters with which he had to contend, in 
this uphill work, against flesh and blood, were those 
which were, afterwards, again combated by the 
admitted Saviour whom he had personated. The 
same faults he reprehended ; the same weakness he 
deplored ; the same hypocrisy he rebuked ; and the 
same virtues he inculcated. The purification of the 
inner spirit was the object which both professed, and 
the improvement of human morals in social inter- 
course and relation, the evidence in practice, upon 
which both equally insisted. 

;; Sec page 132. 



294 THE HOUND TOWERS. 

If Christ promised a heaven to the votaries of his 
truths, Budha did a nirwana to his disciples and 
imitators : and though the former place, to our ima- 
gination, sounds replete with all delights, while the 
latter is merely figured as exempt from all painfulness, 
yet both agree in one particular, not a little soothing 
to wounded hope, in being essentially such, as where 
" the wicked cease from troubling, and where the 
weary are at rest." 

But great as was the resemblance which the per- 
sonal example and the doctrinal lessons of Macha and 
Christ bore to one another, it was as nothing com- 
pared to the almost incredible similitude of their 
respective departures. They both died the inglo- 
rious death of the cross to reconcile man to his 
offended Creator ; and in confident dependence upon 
the best authenticated assurance, exulted on the 
occasion, however galling the process, of expiating, 
by their own sufferings, the accumulated sins of 
humanity. 

Is it to be wondered at, therefore, that the traces 
which they have left behind them, in their different 
ages, should bear an analogy to one another ? Or 
would not the wonder rather be that they did not, 
in all respects, harmonise ? 

u Let not the piety of the Catholic Christian," says 
the Rev. Mr. Maurice, " be offended at the preced- 
ing assertion, that the cross was one of the most usual 
symbols among the hieroglyphics of Egypt and 
India. Equally honoured in the Gentile and the 
Christian world, this emblem of universal nature, of 
that world to whose quarters its diverging radii 
pointed, decorated the hands of most of the sculp- 
tured images in the former country, and in the latter 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 295 

stamped its form upon the most majestic of the shrines 
of their deities *." 

The fact alone is here attested to : not a syllable is 
said as to the reason why : and though I cannot but 
recognise the scruples of the writer, nor withhold my 
admiration from the rotundity in which the diction 
has been cast, yet the reader must have seen that, as 
to actual illustration, it is, — like the Rev. Mr. Deane's 
flourish about the worship of the serpent — Vox et pre- 
term nihil f / " 

" You do err, not knowing the Scriptures \," said 
a master, without pride, and icho could not err. If the 
remark applied in his day, it is not the less urgent in 
ours. So astounding did the correspondence between 
the Christian and the Budhist doctrines appear to 
the early missionaries to Thibet and the adjacent 
countries — a correspondence not limited to mere 
points of faith and preceptorial maxims, but exhibit- 
ing its operation in all the outward details of form, 
the inhabitants going even so far as to wear crosses 
around their necks — that Thevenot, Renaudot, La- 
croze, and Andrada, have supposed, in their igno- 
rance of the cause of such affinity, that Budhism 
must have been a vitiation of Christianity before 
planted ; whereas Budhism flourished thousands of 
years before it, or Brahminism either ; and this cross 
icas the symbol of Budha crucified. 

" Our second illustration," says the ' Dublin Penny 
Journal,' referring to what I have here introduced, 
" belongs to a later period, and will give a good idea 
of the usual mode of representing the Saviour, whe- 

* Indian Antiquities, vol. ii. p. 861'. 
+ See chapter xvi. p. 221. $ Matthew xxii. 29. 



296 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



ther on stone crosses, or on bronze, which prevailed 
from the sixth to the twelfth century. Such remains, 
however, are valuable, not only as memorials of the 
arts, but as preserving the Celtic costume of a portion 







of the inhabitants of our island in those remote ages. 
It will be seen that in ihis, as in one of the shrine- 
figures before given, the kilt, or philibeg, is (lis- 




THE KOIND TOWERS. 29' 



tinctlv marked, and controverts the erroneous assertion 
of Pinkerton, formerly noticed, that " it was always 
quite unknown amongst the Welsh and Irish *." 

How others may receive it, I do not know ; but for 
myself, I confess, I find it no easy matter to maintain 
the composure of my countenance at this affected 
pomposity of censorial magniloquence. The self-com- 
placency of the censor one could tolerate with ease, if 
the assumption of the historian had aught to support 
it. But alas ! every position in the extract is the 
direct opposite of truth, with the exception of that 
which asserts another person's error ; and even this 
is beclouded with such egregious obscurations as to 

show, that leaving Pinkerton to P -f- would be 

consigning the blind to a blinder conductor. 

For, in the first place, the philibeg was not a Celtic 
costume at all, but belonged to the De-danaan, or 
Iranian colony £, who, on their overthrow here, took 
it with them to what is now called Scotland. The 
Firbolgs, who were Celts, and occupied this island 
before the Iranians, wore another style of dress alto- 
gether, which, on the re-conquest of the country by 
the Scythian swarms, B.C. 1000, became again the 
national uniform. For the Firbolgs, having assisted 
the Scythians in dislodging the Iranians from the 
throne of the kingdom, and agreeing with them fur- 
thermore in point of worship and of garb, they did 
not only make their own habits, as well of religion as 
of dress, universal throughout the realm, but oblite- 
rated every vestige of the obnoxious costume, and 
cancelled every symptom of its characteristic cere- 

* Vol. i. page 308, on the article " Fine Arts." 

t The initial subscribed to the article. 

% Sec Appendix. 



298 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

monial, except alone those Round Temples of ada- 
mantine strength, which defied the assailment of all 
violence and batteries. 

There was no remnant, therefore, of the kilt to be 
met with in Ireland, either in the sixth century, or in 
the twelfth, or indeed for many centuries before the 
Christian era at all. This effigy * therefore, could 
not have been intended for our Saviour, wanting, be- 
sides, the I. N. R. I. f, and wearing the Iranian regal 
crown, instead of the Jewish crown of thorns. There- 
fore are we justified in ascribing it to its owner, 
Budha, whom again we find imprinted in the same 
crucified form, but with more irresistibility of identifi- 
cation, over the monuments of his name — over the 
doors and lintels of the temples of his worship. 

* Like the two former effigies, at pages 138 and 140, it is made of 
bronze, and found in Ireland after the Tuath-de-danaans. Those found 
after their brethren in the East are made of the same metal. " Some- 
times," says Archer, " the images are of wood or stone, but these, unless 
possessing the rarity of some monkish legend, are not in such repute as 
their brothers of brass." 

+ This is the only peculiar monogram of Jesus Christ — I. H. S. be- 
longing originally to Budha, though appropriated afterwards to him. 
T H 2 was its proper form, and it comprehended a mysterious number, 
as follows : — 

T 400 

H . . , . . 8 

2 200 



608 
Another monogram of Budha was * P H. It composed the same 
numerical enigma, viz. — 

•I' ;")00 

V .... 100 
H 8 



608 
Salve vera Deum facies, vultusque pateriur. 
Octo et sexcentis numeris, eui litera trina 
Conformet sacrum nomen, cognomen ef omen. 

MaRTIANUS C'Al'ELLA. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



290 




Mr. Gough, describing this edifice, tells us that " On 
the west front of the tower (Brechin) are two arches, 
one within the other, in relief. On the point of the 
outermost is a crucifix, and between both, towards the 
middle, are figures of the Virgin Mary and St. John, 
the latter holding a cup with a lamb. The outer 



.'K)0 THE HOUND TOWERS. 

arch is adorned with knobs, and within both is a slit 
or loop. At bottom of the outer arch are two beasts 
couchant. If one of them, by his proboscis, was not 
evidently cm elephant, I should suppose them the sup- 
porters of the Scotch arms. Parallel with the crucifix 
are two plain stones, which do not appear to have 
had anything upon them *." 

Captain Mackenzie, in his antiquities of the West 
and South Coast of Ceylon, which still professes ad- 
herence to Budhism, tells us that " at each side of the 
doorway (of the temple at Calane), inclosed in recesses 
cut in the wall, are two large figures, the janitors of the 
«w/(Budh) .... A large elephant's tooth and a small 
elephant of brass form the ornament of a lampstead .... 
A female figure of the natural size, decently and not 
ungracefully arrayed in the same garb, was repre- 
sented standing in another quarter, holding a lamp in 
the extended hand. The gallery was entirely covered 
with paintings, containing an history of the life of 
Boodhoo — one of these seemed to represent the birth 
of the divine child. A large while elephant made a 
conspicuous figure in most of these assemblies f.*' 

Scotch arms, indeed ! Why, Sir, those animals 
were recumbent there, in deified transfiguration, 
before ever Pict or Scot had planted a profane foot 
within their neighbourhood. What connexion, let 
me ask, could this elephant and this bull have with 
Christianity, to entitle them to the honour of being 
grouped with our Saviour? Or, if any, how hap- 
pens it that we never see them enter into similar 
combinations, in churches or chapels, or convents or 
cathedrals \ ? 

* Arch. Soc. Ant. Loud. vol. ii. p. S 3 
t Asiatic Researches. 






THE ROUND TOWERS. 301 

But if they belong not to the Christian ceremonial, 
they do to something else. They are the grand, dis- 
tinctive and indispensable adjuncts of Budhism ; being 
the two animals into which, according to its doctrine of 
metempsychosis, the soul ofBudha had entered after his 
death. 

This was the origin of the Egyptian Apis : and 
who is not familiar with the honours lavished upon 
the sacred bull? To this day the elephant is wor- 
shipped in the Burman empire*, where the genius 
of Budism still lingeringly tarries; and "Lord of the 
White Elephant" is the proudest ensign of power 
claimed by the successors to the throne of Pegu. 

The human figures, then, of course, cannot be 
intended for " St. John or the Virgin Mary." They 
represent Budha's Virgin Mother, along with his 
favorite disciple, Rama. And thus does the testimony 
of Artemidorus, who flourished 104 years before Christ, 
a native himself of Ephesus, and who did not him- 
self understand the mystery of that Virgin whom he 
historically records, receive illustration from my proof 
while it gives it confirmation in return. 

His words are — " Adjacent to Britain there stands 
an island, where sacred rites are performed to Ceres 
and the Virgin, similar to those in Samothrace." 

Initiation in the principles of this Samothracian 
ceremonial was thought so necessary an accomplish- 

* " He has a separate apartment, shrouded from vulgar eyes by a 
black velvet curtain, richly embossed with gold, in a splendid palace at 
Ummerapoor : and his whole residence is as dazzling and sumptuous as 
gold and silver can make it. He is furnished with a silk bed, adorned 
with gold tapestry, hangings, and jewellery, and has his gold appurte- 
nances. Foreign ministers are introduced to his sacred person, and he 
ranks before every member of the royal court except the king."— 
Symes. 



302 THE ltOUiVD TOWERS. 

ment for every hero and every prince, that no aspi- 
rant to those distinctions ever ventured upon his des- 
tination, without first paying a visit to that religious 
rendezvous. The solemnity, attaching to the ritual 
there performed, was not greater than the veneration 
paid to the place itself. All fugitives found shelter 
within its privileged precincts, and the name of 
sacred was assigned it, as the ordinary characteristic 
of such sanctuaries *. 

iC There are," says the Scholiast upon Aristo- 
phanes, u two orders of mysteries celebrated in the 
course of the year, in honour of Ceres and the 
Virgin — the lesser and the greater ; the former 
being but a sort of purification and holy preparation 
for the latter t-" 

Who this Virgin was, however, none but the 
initiated ever presumed to investigate, the practice 
observed in respect to her, being the same as that 
which influenced the other ordinances of antiquity : 
and which made Strabo himself declare, that " all 
that can be said concerning the gods must be by the 
exposition of old opinions and fables : it being the cus- 
tom of the ancients to wrap up in enigma and allegory 
their thoughts and discourses concerning nature, which 
are, therefore, not easily explained £." 

Proclus also says, " In all initiations and myste- 

* It was only as an epithet thai the title sacred could apply to Sarao- 
thrace : and as such, every other locality, wherein those mysteries were 
commemorated, shared it in common. But in this our island, to which 
Artemidorus above alludes, and where superior solemnity attended the 
celebration, the name of sacred was no adventitious clause, but, par 
excellence, the constituent essence of its proper appellation. — See pages 
128, 9. 

•)■ tilvam^iu. Ss tiuo rtXzirai tou iviaurou ; A»/i»T^i xiti Ko^>] ; to f&ixoa. xai ra 
fj.iyu.Xa- xai lari ra fj.ix.na catfiri^ -rpoxaflagiri; xai Tgayviuiri; ruv fjiyaXuv . 

1 Lib. x. p. 474. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 303 

ries, the gods exhibit themselves under many forms, 
and with a frequent change of shape ; sometimes as 
light defined to no particular figure ; sometimes in a 
human form ; and sometimes in that of some other 
creature *." 

With the clue, however, already afforded, we need 
not be deterred from approaching her fane. The 
allegorical name, under which they disguised her, 
was that of Proserpine : whom they represent " so 
beautiful that the father of the gods himself became 
enamoured of her, and deceived her by changing him- 
self into a serpent, and folding her in his wreaths f." 

This was the Greek perversion of the narrative. 
They had received it from the Pelasgi, under the 
garb of a conception, by serpentine insinuation, in a 
virgin womb : and, the grossness of their intellects 
not allowing them to comprehend the possibility of 
an emanation, yet giving unqualified credence to 
the record, they degraded altogether the religious- 
ness of the thought, and supposed that the Almighty, 
to effectuate his design, had actually assumed the 
cobra di capello form ! 

So austere was the rule, by which those mysteries 
were protected, that iEschylus but barely escaped dis- 
cerption within the theatre, for an imagined disrespect 
to their tendency. Nor was it but on the plea of 
ignorance and w/z-initiation, that he did ultimately 
obtain pardon \. 

This insuperable barrier to the curiosity of the 
profane, engendered in their conduct a correspond- 

* £/; T»v TloXir. nXasT. p. 380. 

f See the article under her name in the Classical Dictionary, with all 
the authorities there adduced. 
1 Clem. Alex. Strom, ii. 



304 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

ing re-action, and, as the fox did to the grapes, what 
they could not themselves compass, they strove all 
they could to vituperate ! 

" Virtue, however, is its own reward ;" and, as 
the authority of Cicero, having been himself a 
priest, ought to have some weight in this discus- 
sion, it is no small impetus to the cause of truth, to 
hear this pre-eminent man assign to the efficacy 
of the precepts, inculcated in those mysteries, — " the 
knowledge of the God of nature ; the first, the 
supreme, the intellectual ; by which men had been 
reclaimed from rudeness and barbarism, to elegance 
and refinement ; and been taught, not only to live 
with more comfort, but to die with better hopes *." 

Slave to no sect, who takes no private road, 
But looks through Nature up to Nature's God ; 
Pursues that chain which links the immense design, 
Joins heaven and earth, and mortal and divine, 
Sees that no being any bliss can know, 
But touches some above, and some below; 
Learns from this union of the rising whole, 
The first, last purpose of the human soul ; 
And knows where faith, law, morals, all began, 
All end in love of God and love of man t. 

* Mihi cum multa eximia divinaque videntur Athenae tuae pepe- 
risse — turn nihil melius illis mysteriis quibus agresti immanique vital 
exculti ad humanitatem mitigati sumus : initiaque, ut appellantur, it a 
revera principia vitse cognovimus : neque solum cum laetitia vivendi 
rationem accepimus, sed etiam cum spe meliori moriendi. — De Legibus, 
1. i. c. 24. 

t Pope. 



305 



CHAPTER XXII. 

I would have my reader pause upon the substance 
of the terms with which the last section concluded — 
" Not only to live with more comfort, but to die with 
better hopes ! " 

Have you read them ? Have you digested them ? 
And are you not ashamed of your illiberality ? 

From what pulpit in Christendom will you hear 
better or more orthodox truths ? Where will you 
find the Gospel more energetically enunciated ? 
And, with this testimony staring you in the face — 
in defiance of inner light — and imperiously subju- 
gating the allegiance of rationality — will you still 
persist in limiting the benevolence of your " Father?" 
and in withholding every symptom of paternal 
regard from his own liandywork, until the begin- 
ning of the last two thousand years ? that is, as it 
were, till yesterday ? 

" I tell you, that if these should hold their peace, 
the stones would immediately cry out*." 

" On a bank near the shore," says Cordiner, in 
his Antiquities of Scotland, " opposite to the ruins of 
a castellated house, called Sandwick (in Ross- shire), 
and about three miles east from Ferns, a very splen- 
did obelisk is erected, surrounded at the base with 

* Luke xix. 20. 



306 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 




vsS£ 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 307 

large, well-cut flag stones, formed like steps. Both 
sides of this column are elaborately covered with 
various enrichments, in well finished carved work. 
The one face presents a sumptuous cross, with a 
figure of St. Andrew on each hand, and some 
uncouth animals and flowerings underneath. The 
central division, on the reverse, renders it a piece of 
antiquity well worthy of preservation ; there is exhi- 
bited on. that such a variety of figures, birds, and 
animals, as seemed what might prove a curious sub- 
ject of investigation; I have, therefore, given a dis- 
tinct delineation of them at the foot of the column, 
on a larger scale, that their shapes might be dis- 
tinctly ascertained, and the more probable conjectures 
formed of their allusion." 

What, on earth, business would St. Andrew have 
in company with " uncouth animals?" What have 
" birds," " figures," and " flowerings" to do with 
Christianity? If this " obelisk" had not been erected 
here, in commemorative deification, centuries upon 
centuries before the era of his Saintship's birth, why 
should the " cross," which " one face presents," be 
decorated with " enrichments'' brought all the way 
from Egypt? 

Look at these hieroglyphics : and where will you 
find anything congenial to them within the empire of 
the Romans ? Here is the Balbul of Iran*, the boar of 
Vishnu, the elk, the fox, the lamb, and the dancers. 
All the other configurations, without going through 
them in detail, are not only, in their nature and im- 

* " The Bulbul of Iran has a passion for the rose, and when he sees 
any person pull a rose from the tree he laments and cries." — Persian 
Poem, quoted in Ouseley's Oriental Collections. 

x2 



308 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

port, essentially eastern, but are actually the symbols 
of the various animal-forms under which they con- 
templated the properties of the Godhead. As the cross, 
however, is that to which we are more immediately 
directed, I shall confine myself, for the present, to 
the establishment of its antiquity. 

No one will question but that Venus was antece- 
dent to the days of St. Andrew ; and she is repre- 
sented with a cross and a circle*! Jupiter also, it 
will be admitted, was anterior to his time ; and we 
find him delineated with a cross and a horn ! Saturn 
is said to have been sire to the last-mentioned god, 
and, by the laws of primogeniture, must have been 
senior to him ; yet we find him also pictured with a 
cross and horn ! The monogram of Osiris is a cross ! 
On a medal of one of the Ptolemies is to be seen an 
eagle conveying a thunderbolt with the cross ! In 
short, all through the ancient world this symbol was 
to be encountered, and wherever it presented itself, 
it was always the harbinger of sanctity and of peace. 

Can we glean from their writings any confirma- 
tion to my development as to the origin of the rite? 
Plato asserts, that the form of the letter X was im- 
printed upon the universe f. 1 know how this has 
been interpreted as a reference to the Son of God, 

* Basnage, b. iii. c. xix. s. xix. 

t That phenomenon in the heavens, called the " Southern Cross," 
appears to me so associated with the mystery of redemption, in all ages, 
that I cannot forbear drawing attention to the sign. The following is 
Captain Basil Hall's description of this curious constellation. 

" Of all the antarctic constellations, the celebrated Southern Cross is 
by far the most remarkable ; and must in every age continue to arrest 
the attention of all voyagers and travellers who are fortunate enough to 
see it. I think it would strike the imagination even of a person who 
bad never heard of the Christian religion ; but of this it is difficult to 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 309 

and the second power of the Divinity. I will not 
make use of it in any such light, preferring to avoid 
everything that may seem equivocal, yet am I well 
convinced that, under the philosopher's ratiocination, 
may be seen the twinkling trace of a previous in- 
carnation of the T^oyog, and a crucifixion, likewise, as 
an atonement for the sins of humanity. 

" Surely he hath borne our griefs and carried our 
sorrows : yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of 
God, and afflicted. 

" But he was wounded for our transgressions, he 
was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of 

judge, seeing how inextricably our own ideas are mingled up with asso- 
ciations linking this sacred symbol with almost every thought, word, and 
deed of our lives. 

" The three great stars which form the Cross, one at the top, one at 
the left arm, and one, which is the chief star, called Alpha, at the foot, 
are so placed as to suggest the idea of a. crucifix, even without the help 
of a small star, which completes the horizontal beam. When on the 
meridian, it stands nearly upright ; and as it sets, we observe it lean over 
to the westward. I am not sure whether, upon the whole, this is not 
more striking than its gradually becoming more and more erect, as it 
rises from the east. In every position, however, it is beautiful to look 
at, and well calculated, with a little prompting from the fancy, to stir 
up our thoughts to solemn purposes. 

" I know not how others are affected by such things, but for myself 
I can say with truth, that during the many nights I have watched the 
Southern Cross, I remember on two occasions, when the spectacle 
interested me exactly in the same way, nor any one upon which I did 
not discover the result to be somewhat different, and always more 
impressive than what I had looked for. This constellation, being about 
thirty degrees from the South Pole, is seen in its whole revolution, and 
accordingly, when off the Cape of Good Hope, I have observed it in 
every stage ; from its triumphant erect position, between sixty and 
seventy degrees above the horizon, to that of complete immersion, with 
the top beneath, and almost touching the water. This position, by the 
way, always reminded me of the death of St. Peter, who is said to have 
deemed it too great an honour to be crucified with his head upwards. 
In short, I defy the stupidest mortal that ever lived, to watch these 
changes in the aspect of this splendid constellation, and not to be, in 
some degree, struck by them." — Fragments of Voyages. 



310 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

our peace was upon him ; and with his stripes we 
are healed *." 

This is all in the past tense ; bearing reference, 
irrefutabty, to a former occurrence, but including, 
also, in the sequel, the idea of a. future reappearance. 
And if you look back at the effigy, page 296, will it 
not sensitively prove him to have been " a man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief f?" 

" The deity Hari," says an inscription at Budda- 
gaya, in India, " the lord and possessor of all, ap- 
peared in this ocean of natural beings at the close of 
the Devapara and beginning of the Cali Yug\ He 
who is omnipresent and everlastingly to be contem- 
plated, the Supreme Being, the Eternal One, the 
Divinity worthy of mankind, appeared here, with a 
portion of his divine nature J." 

There is no term so vernacular in the Irish lan- 
guage as that of Budh-gaye. It is familiar to the ears 
of every smatterer in letters ; and is in the mouth 
of every cowherd, from Cape Clear to the Giants' 
Causeway. Neither class has, however, had so 
much as a glimpse of what it means : nor did they 
busy themselves much in the pursuit, but acquiesced 
in that example of commendable resignation once prac- 
tised by Strabo — when he failed to ascertain any- 
thing about the Cabin — by declaring that u the name 
was mysterious ! " 

A great personage, however, who was not only in 
his habits wise, but was in himself wisdom, has 
affirmed, that " there is nothing covered that shall 
not be revealed ; nor hid that shall not be known §." 
And as every sentence recorded as emanating from 

* Isaiah liii. 4, .5. t Isaiah liii. 3. 

t Asiatic Researches. \N Matthew \ 2l 



THE ROUND TO WEltS. 311 

his lips has with me a value more than what could 
serve to illustrate a momentary topic, I flatter myself 
that the result of the confidence, thus humbly in- 
spired, will be additionally verified in the instance 
before us. 

Budh- gaye, then of the Irish, or Budha-gaya of the 
Hindoos, means Phallus* telluris, i. e., the generative- 
iiess of the earth, or the earth's prolific principle. This 
I have before demonstrated to have been the object of 
adoration to the ancients ; and have furthermore 
shown, that one of the individuals, in whom this idea 
was personified, had suffered crucifixion as a mediator 
for sin. 

A new disclosure suggests itself from this. Budh 
and Phallus being synonimous, if you add Gaye to 
each, then Budh- gaye and Gaye-phallus will be iden- 
tical. But, as the character, who embodied the ab- 
stract virtue of the former, had been crucified, his 
name came to stand, not only for that abstract virtue, 
but also for a cross f, or a crucified mail ; and of course, 
Gaye-phallus, its equivalent, represented the same ideas. 

Now, as well the primary as secondary meaning of 
those two words was liable to misconstruction ; and 
they were sure to obtain such from ignorance and 
from depravity. The pure and the sublime emotions, 
which the religiousness of the prolific principle had 

* This will explain a text in Scripture never before understood, viz., 
" Son of man, when the land sinneth against me by trespassing 
grievously, then will I stretch out mine hand upon it, and will break 
the staff of the bread thereof, and will send famine upon it, and will cut 
off man and beast from it." Ezekiel xiv. 13. Fogh is another term 
equivalent to this. 

t This will at once appear from Varro, who, in Nonus Marcellinus, is 
made to say, " We are barbarians, because that we crucify (in gabalum 
suffigimus) the innocent ; are you not barbarians, when you acquit the 
guilty?" Compare also Selden, Syntagm. ii. c. 1. 



312 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

comprehended, were perverted by malice into sen- 
suality and debauchery ; while the idea of a man cru- 
cified, however innocent of charge, could not be 
separated, by grovelling and servile dispositions, from 
the ordinary accompaniments of contempt and of crime. 

Hence Budh-gaye and Gaye-phallus, after a suc- 
cession of ages, when their proper acceptation was 
forgotten, were remembered only in their perverted 
sense. And accordingly we observe, that, when a 
Roman Emperor who had been brought up a priest 
in the East, assumed, on his being appointed to the 
Roman sceptre, the title of Helio- ga-balus, and thereby 
invested himself in all the attributes of Gaye-phallus, 
or Budh-gaye, that is, in other words, as the Vicegerent 
of the Sun, the licentiousness of his life, and the 
profligacy of his demeanour, having rendered him ob- 
noxious to his subjects, they amputated the prefix of 
his Solar majesty, and branded him with the scorn of 
Ga-balus. 

The disdain intended in this latter abbreviation is 
now, therefore, already solved. Gaye-phallus, for sound- 
sake, having been made Ga-phallus, this latter was 
still further — by reason of the commutability of the 
letters ph and b — reduced into Ga-balus. 

When the temple of Serapis, at Alexandria, was 
destroyed, we are told by Sozomon, that the mono- 
gram of Christ was discovered beneath the founda- 
tion. And, though neither party knew how to account 
for the sign, yet was it pleaded alike, oy the Gentiles 
as by the Christians, in support of the heavenliness 
of their respective religions. 

The early Roman fathers, very pious but very illite- 
rate men, unable to close their eyes against the proofs 
of the priority of the cross to the era of the advent, 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 313 

did not scruple to assign it to the malicious fore- 
knowledge of the prince of the lower world # . 

But if this gentleman had been the author of the 
early cross, is it likely that God would have em- 
braced it, as the signal of his protection, when dealing 
destruction to the objects of his divine vengeance ? 

" And the Lord said unto him, go through the 
midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, 
and put a mark upon the foreheads of the men that 
sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be 
done in the midst thereof: 

" And to the others he said, in my hearing, go ye 
after him through the city, and smite ; let not your 
eye spare, neither have ye pity. 

" Slay utterly old and young, both maids and little 
children, and women; but come not near any man 
upon whom is the mark ; and begin at my sanctuaryf." 

Now this " mark/' in the ancient Hebrew original, 
was the cross X. St. Jerom, the most learned by far 
of those "fathers" has admitted the circumstance. 
And if this had been the device of the enemy of man, 
would the Author of all goodness so sanction his im- 
posture, as to adopt it as the index of his saving love ? 

" Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not these 
things J ?" 

But this was not the only invention which they 
attributed to the devil. Tertullian gravely assures 
us that he was the author of buskins also ! And why, 

* Mithra signat illic in frontibus milites suos. — Tertullian, de Prso- 
scrip. cap. xi. 

t Ezekiel ix. 4, 5, 6. 

% John iii. 10. The omission of this cross from the text of our trans- 
lation may afford some handle to the enemies of religion. 

il'iOI'iff Ofl't TO 



314 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



good reader, would you suppose? — in sooth, for no 
other reason than because that our Saviour said, in 
his sermon upon the mountain, " Which of you, by 
taking thought, can add one cubit unto his stature * ?" 

In him, also, did they find an adequate excuse for 
those apertures, which I shall by and by notice, as 
excavated in rocks and mounds of clay, calling them, 
with some compliment, it must be admitted, to his 
gallantry, by the monopolizing appellation of the 
Devil's Yonies f. 

But of all the puerilities which sully their zeal, 
there is no one half so calculated to injure vital 
religion, as the low quibbles and dishonest quotations 
which Justin Martyr had recourse to, as apologies for 
the cross! 

Why, Sir, the greatest persecutor with which the 
Christians had ever been cursed, namely, the emperor 
Decius, had imprinted the cross upon some of his 



coins 




Here, again, it is upon a medal, found in the ruins of 
Citium, and proved, by Dr. Clarke, in his " Travels," 



* Matthew vi. 27. 



+ Cunni Diaboli. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 315 

to have been Phoenician ! It exhibits the lamb, the 
cross, and the rosary * ! 

When John the Baptist first saw Jesus beyond the 
Jordan, in Bethabara, he exclaimed, " Behold the 
Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the 

world |." 

This he did not apply as a novel designation ; but 
as the familiar epithet, and the recognised denomina- 
tion of the Son of God, whose prescribed office it 
was, in all the changes of past worlds, as it was now 
in this present, to redress the broken-hearted, by 
taking away sin. 

He adds, " This is he of whom I said, after me 
cometh a man which is preferred before me ; for 
he was before wzej," not only in eternity, but on this 
earth. 

" And I knew him not ; but that he should be made 
manifest to Israel §," as he was before to other 
nations, — an event, which was but the fulfilment of 
a prophecy, ushered in, many years before, in these 
remarkable words — 

" Behold, the former things are come to pass ||:" 
not that the predictions formerly delivered had taken 
place, but the things, the events, the occurrences, 
which had been enacted before, were now re-enacted ! 
that a renovation of the world was at hand, which 
the mouth-piece of the Lord commences by saying — 
" New things do I declare ; before they spring forth 
I tell you of them ." 

On turning the leaf, you will see another of those 

* The rosary was also anterior to Christianity, 
f John i. 29. % John i. 30. 

§ John i. 31 . It Isaiah xlii. 9. 



316 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



- ; 




THE ROUND TOWERS. 317 

pillars which grace a land of heroes, " where stones 
were raised on high to speak to future times, with 
their grey heads of moss*;" and whose story, though 
u lost in the mist of years," may yet be deciphered 
from off themselves. 

This costly relic of religion, erected solely in 
honour of the cross, is to be seen at Forres, in Scot- 
land, and is thus described by Cordiner : — 

" On the first division, under the Gothic ornaments 
at the top, are nine horses with their riders, march- 
ing in order; in the next division is a line of warriors 
on foot, brandishing their weapons, and appear to be 
shouting for the battle. The import of the attitudes 
in the third division very dubious, their expression 
indefinite. 

" The figures which form a square in the middle 
of the column, are pretty complex, but distinct ; four 
serjeants, with their halberts, guard a canopy, under 
which are placed several human heads, which have 
belonged to the dead bodies piled up at the left of 
the division : one appears in the character of execu- 
tioner, severing the head from another body ; behind 
him are three trumpeters sounding their trumpets ; 
and before him two pair of combatants fighting with 
sword and target. 

" A troop of horse next appears, put to flight by 
infantry, whose first line have bows and arrows ; the 
three following, swords and targets. In the lower- 
most division now visible, the horses seem to be 
seized by the victorious party, their riders beheaded, 
and the head of their chief hung in chains, or placed 
in a frame : the others being thrown together beside 
the dead bodies, under an arched cover." 

* Temora. 



318 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

With this compare the description given by Cap- 
tain Head, of the devices sculptured upon one of the 
Egyptian antiquities. 

" It would," says he, " far exceed the limits of 
this work, to attempt a description of the ornaments 
of sculpture in this temple. The most interesting are 
on the north wall, where there are battle-scenes, with 
innumerable figures of military combatants, using 
their arms, consisting of bows and arrows, spears 
and bucklers — of prostrate enemies, of war-chariots 
and horses. The fiery action and elegant shape of 
the steeds are remarkable. It would require a first- 
rate living genius to rival the variety of position, the 
power of effect, and fidelity of execution, in which 
men and horses are exhibited in the dismay of the 
flight, the agony of the death-struggle, and the 
exultation of the triumph." 

Let us take a view, now, of the other side of this 
obelisk. " The greatest part of it," says Cordiner, 
" is occupied by a sumptuous cross, and covered over 
with an uniform figure, elaborately raised, and inter- 
woven with great mathematical exactness ; of this, 
on account of its singularity, there is given a repre- 
sentation at the foot of the column. Under the cross 
are two august personages with some attendants, 
much obliterated, but evidently in an attitude of 
reconciliation ; and if the monument was erected in 
memory of the peace concluded between Malcolm and 
Canute, upon the final retreat of the Danes, these 
larger figures may represent the reconciled monarchs. 

" On the edge, below the fretwork, are some rows 
of figures, joined hand-in-hand, which may also 
imply the new degree of confidence and security 
which took place, after the feuds were composed, 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



319 




320 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

which are characterised on the front of the pillar. 
But to whatever particular transaction it may allude, 
it can hardly be imagined, that in so early an age of 
the arts in Scotland as it must have been raised, so ela- 
borate a performance would have been undertaken 
but in consequence of an event of the most general 
importance: it is, therefore, surprising, that no dis- 
tincter traditions of it arrived at the era when letters 
were known." 

As to " the era when letters were known," I shall 
bestow upon that a sentence or two by and by. 
For the present I confine myself to the " surprise 
that no distincter traditions" of this monolith temple* 
has been handed down to us. 

It was erected by the Tuath-de-danaans on their 
expulsion from Ireland. The inscriptions upon it 
are the irresistible evidence of their emblematic reli- 
gion. After an interval of some centuries, the Picts 
poured in upon their quietude ; and the barbarous 
habits of those marauders, being averse as much to the 
ritual as to the avocations of the Tuath-de-danaans, 
they effaced every vestige of the dominion of that 
people, and made them fly for shelter to the High- 
lands. 

In the days of Malcolm, therefore, and of Canute, 
the history of this pyramid was as difficult of solu- 
tion, as it was in those of Pennant and of Cordiner. 
And there is no question but that the two monarchs 
looked, with as much wonder, upon the hieroglyphics 
along its sides, as did the two antiquarians, who would 
fain associate them with them. 

It is to me marvellous, how persons, in the posses- 

* And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God's house. 
— Genesis xxviii. 22. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 321 

sion of common reason could, contrary to all the evi- 
dence of observation and history, look upon the Danish 
invasion as the epoch of all enlightenment ! and the 
Danes, themselves, as the heaven-sent importers of 
its blessing's ! Yet, whatever may have been the 
case with some hopeful scions of this order, Mr. Cor- 
diner, at all events, appears to have been honest, and 
if he missed the direction of historical verity, it was 
less his fault than his misfortune. 

Who can say so much for Ledwich ? 

The following extract will justify the tribute here 
paid to the sincerity of Mr. Cordiner's investigations — 
" These monuments," says he, " are all said to have 
been erected in memory of defeats of the Danes, but 
there does not appear any reference that the hierogly- 
phics on them can have to such events. That they have 
been raised on interesting occasions there can be 
little doubt, perhaps in memory of the most re- 
nowned chieftains and their exploits who first em- 
braced Christianity." 

They who first " embraced Christianity" were no 
" chieftains;" or such as were, had no " exploits" to 
record. But it was not so with the professors of the 
primeval " cross," in the revelation of Budhism, the 
transmigrations of which were but typically pour- 
trayed on this enduring column. And in confirma- 
tion hereof, Mr. Gordon affirms that he has " dis- 
tinguished upon it several figures of a monstrous form , 
resembling fourfooted beasts with human heads!" 

Carnac, in Upper Egypt, retains a monolith of the 
same symbolic character. It is eighty feet high, 
composed of a single block of black granite, present- 
ing a beautifully polished surface on each of its four 
sides. The hieroglyphics upon it represent the life- 

Y 



322 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



' & 



HI 

U Ul "? £ 









Ill :: ROUND TOWERS. 323 

time of Thot, or Budda, until you at last see him 
enthroned in heaven, at the top. 

" He seems, indeed," says Hamilton, " to have 
been considered either by himself, his subjects, or his 
successors, as a peculiar favourite of heaven. He is 
frequently on his knees, receiving from Isis and Osiris, 
together with their blessing, the insignia of royalty 
and even of divinity. The hawk is always flying 
above him. Two priests are performing upon him 
the mysterious ceremony of pouring the cruces ansatas, 
or crosses with rings, over his head ; at which time he 
wears a common dress and close cap. Hermes and 
Osiris are pointing out to him a particular line in a 
graduated scale, allusive it may be to the periodical 
inundation of the Nile, or the administration of strict 
justice: or, (combined with the preceding scene) to 
the ceremony of ( initiation into the religious myste- 
ries*.'" 

The number of feet in the pillar corresponds too, 
if I mistake not, with that of the years of his recorded 
pilgrimage. 

Captain Head describes, in his splendid work, the 
avenue which leads to the temple to which this 
belongs, in the following terms : — " Fragments of 
sphinxes line the sides of the road at intervals of ten 
or twelve feet, and usher the visiter to the magni- 
ficent granite propylon, or gateway, whose grandeur 
for a time monopolizes the attention, and makes him 
who gazes on it at a loss to decide whether he shall 
remain adoring its fine proportions, or advance and 
examine the carvings which embellish its front. Is 

* It is fit I should advertise that Mr. Hamilton spoke of the individual 
merely as a figure, without professing to identify him in name or history 
either with Thot, Budha, or any body else. 

Y 2 



324 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

this ' the land made waste by the hand of strangers, 
who destroy the walls, and cause the images to cease ?' 
The fragments of desolation that lie scattered around 
are identified with the predictions of the inspired 
historians, by whom we are enabled to estimate the 
' palmy state' of this once mighty kingdom, whose 
gigantic monuments fully verify all that has been 
said or sung of its pristine splendour." 

After what has been said above, then, along with 
what may be added by and by, may I not safely pro- 
claim that M'Pherson's prediction, that " the history 
of Caledonia, before the Roman eagles were dis- 
played beyond the friths, must ever remain in im- 
penetrable darkness *," has now been falsified ? 

What are ages and the lapse of time, 
Matched against truths as lasting as sublime ? 
Can length of years on God himself exact ? 
Or make that fiction which was once a fact f 
No — marble and recording brass decay, 
And like the graver's memory pass away : 
The works of man inherit, as is just, 
Their author's frailty, and return to dust ; 
But truth divine for ever stands secure, 
Its head is guarded, as its base is sure ; 
Fixed in the rolling flood of endless years, 
The pillar of the eternal plan appears, 
The raving storm and dashing wave defies, 
Built by that Architect who built the skies t. 

* Introduction, page xciii. 

t C0WP£R. 



325 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

A very industrious contributor to the " Asiatic Re- 
searches " has afforded scope for some jests at his 
expense, because of the attempt which he has made 
to identify the British islands with certain Western 
localities commemorated in the writings of the Hin- 
doos. Had he but known, however, the coincidence 
of our monuments with those mysteries which the 
Puranas record ; how they mutually support and 
dovetail into each other, he could not only have 
laughed to scorn the traducers of his services, but 
fixed his fame upon a pinnacle of literary pride, which 
no under growl of envy could have subverted. 

But as it is, unacquainted with the history of the 
places which he left behind him, and wading, there- 
fore, through an ocean, in which he had no compass 
for his guide, he has, in his puerile endeavours to 
wrest the text of the Puranas to external preju- 
dices, effected more himself towards the disparage- 
ment of his reputation, than what the combined 
influence of interest and of scepticism could otherwise 
accomplish. 

" There are," say the Puranas, " many manifesta- 
tions and forms of Bhagavan, O Muni, but the form 
which resides in the White Island is the primitive 
one. Vishnu," says the author, " recalling all his 
emanations into the White Island, went into the womb, 



326 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

in the house of Vasu-devi ; and on this grand occa- 
sion he recalled all his emanations. Bama and 
Nrisinha are complete forms O Muni ; but Crishna, 
the most powerful king of the White Island, is the 
most perfect and complete of all Vishnu's forms. For 
this purpose, Vishnu, from Potola, rejoins the body of 
Radhiceswara, the lord of Radha, he who dwells in 
the White Island, with the famous snake, a portion of 
his essence. The gods sent there portions of their 
own essences, to be consolidated into the person of 
Crishna, who was going to be incarnated at Go- 
cula *." 

The gist of the foregoing, Mr. Wilford would neu- 
tralize by this following extract, which he gives 
as the substance of another notice in the same 
documents, and which he considers, himself, as 
incredible. 

" Bali, an antediluvian, and in the fifth generation 
from the creation, is introduced, requesting the god 
of gods, or Vishnu, to allow him to die by his hand, 
that he might go into his paradise in the White Island. 
Vishnu told him it was a favour not easily ob- 
tained ; that he would, however, grant his request. 
But, says Vishnu, you cannot come into my paradise 
now ; but you must wait, till I become incarnate in 
the shape of a boar, in order to make the world 
undergo a total renovation, to establish and secure it 
upon a most firm and permanent footing : and you 
must wait a whole yuga till this takes place, and then 
you will accompany me into my paradise." 

" Ganesa, who is identified with Vishnu, and lifts, 
also, an inferior paradise in the White Island, and 

* From the Brahma-vawartta, section of the Crifchna-janma — c'hamla. 



THE ROUND TOWKltS. 327 

another in the Euxine, or Jeshu sea, thus says to a 
king of Casi, or Benares, an antediluvian, and who, 
like Bali, wished much to be admitted into his 
elysium, (C you cannot now enter my paradise, in the 
White Island ; you must wait 5000 years : but in the 
mean time you may reside in my other paradise, in 
the Euxine sea." 

Now, all these monstrosities, as they presented 
themselves to Mr. Wilford, gaging them with the 
comparisons of dry rule and line, on the application 
of the true touchstone, vanish into ether. 

The most mysterious and religiously -occult name 
given to Ireland, in the days of its pristine glory, was 
Muc-Inis. 

This word has three interpretations — firstly, the 
Boar Island — secondly, the White Island — and thirdly, 
the Sacred, or rather, the Divine, and Consecrated 
Island of God *. 

Is it necessary that I should say one syllable more 
to authenticate the Puranas, and identify this hallowed 
spot with the paradise of their encomiums ? No : I 
shall not affront your understanding by so supposing. 
The explanation of this single term has, more effectu- 
ally than could a ship load of folios, set to flight the 
hobgoblins of ignorance and of scepticism, and reared 
the castle of truth on the ruins of prostrated error. 

I would by no means, however, be understood as 
intending an ungenerous trophy over Mr. Wilford's 
mistakes. I respect the zeal with which he embarked 
in his undertaking; and, to speak over-board, the 
lapses, which he has committed, were to him ethically 
unavoidable. 

* Much, mugh, mughsaine tra ainm sain delias do dheadh. — Cormac's 
Glossary. 



328 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

The sting, therefore, of the above, if any it con- 
vey, must be directed exclusively to the romancer s\ of 
my own country : a specimen of whom I shall give 
you in the Rev. Dr. Keating, who, venturing to un- 
veil the mystery of the name Muc-Inis, and account 
for its origin, tells us, with a serious face, that " when 
the Danaans found the Milesians attempted to land, 
by their magical enchantments they threw a cloud on 
the island, by which it appeared no bigger than a 
hog's back ! ! ! " 

But Ireland, thank God, is rescued from the dri- 
velling of such dotards. It will hold its place, now, 
amongst the nations of the earth ; and the result is 
inevitable, however tardy your compliance, but that the 
truth will be revived from one pole of the universe to 
the other, that, in the primeval world, all sanctity 
and all happiness had here fixed their abode, — that 
heaven was here personified, — and that the irra- 
diating- focus of all moral enlightenment was here 
alone to be found *. 

Look, Sir, what do you see before you ? The solu- 
tion of that all-healing arrow which Abaris was 
said to have brought with him from the island of the 
Hyperboreans, on his visit of religion to Greece! 

Should you ever chance to travel as far as the 
county of Galway, inquire for the deserted village 
of Knockmoy. Though now dreary, inconsiderable, 
and forgotten, it was once the theatre of .soul-stirring 
impressions! 

There, in the remnant of an ancient Tuath-de-da- 
naan Temple, vaulted with stone, and transformed, in 

*The locale of that boar, as well as the mystery of its meaning, which 
Plutarch transmitted in his allegorical war between Osiris and Typhon, 
is now, no longer, ambiguous. — See page 337. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



329 




330 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



after ages, to a Christian Abbey, you will find, after 
a succession of, at least, three thousand revolving 
years, this pathetic representation of the youth Apollo 
slaying with his arrow the serpent Pytho?i * — in other 
words, overthrowing, by self endurance, the dominion of 
sin ! and, finally, by immolation upon a tree, to which 
you perceive him pinioned, establishing ascendancy 
over the serpent and his wiles, and pointing out the 
road to eternity beyond the grave ! 

In an upper range, on the same compartment, you 







can trace this other line, consisting of three kings with 



* I have before ex plained that the serpent Pyth-on means the seduc- 
tion of sensuality— Pith itself signifying yoni, the boat, or serpent, the 
final on being nothing hut a Greek termination. 



J UK ROUND TOWERS. 331 

their eastern crowns, their eastern costume, and the dove 
of amity entwining all of them as they superintend 
the spectacle, while the solemnity of the whole is 
enhanced by the composure with which a Brehon 
sits by, in his turban of state, after reading from the 
Bana, or the Budhist gospel, the sentence of con- 
demnation and of mysterious expiation, in one and the 
same breath. 

l< He was oppressed and he was afflicted ; yet he 
opened not his mouth : he is brought as a lamb to 
the slaughter, and as a sheep before his shearers is 
dumb, so he open eth' not his mouth*." 

But this is not the only incident which this trea- 
sure of antiquity pourtrays. Beside the three mo- 
narchs are skeleton delineations of the three other 
divinities, who, before this fourth, assumed the form 
of humanity, and went through the same ordeal of 
atoning passion to reclaim our species, through ages 
back in the distance -j- ! 

It will readily be believed, that descriptions so 
mysterious, relating to events so momentous, must 
have attracted the observation of subsequent years. 
Generation after generation gazed upon them with 
wonder ! Generation after generation spoke their 
ignorance in wonder ! Mr. Ledwich, of course, must 
have a snap at them : and it would make a cat laugh, 
or Plutarch's boar dance a hornpipe, to hear the 
contortions of history, the violations of nature, the 
perversions of fact, of date, and of philosophy, 

* Isaiah liii. 7. 

t " The gods," said the Budhist priest to the Catholic bishop before 
alluded to, " who have appeared in the present world, and who have 
obtained the perfect state, niebau, or deliverance from all the evils of 
life, are four, Chanchasam, Gonagom, Gaspa, and Godama. - "— Syme*s 
Embassy to the Court of Ava. 



332 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

which this blot upon letters has strung together 
into a melange, as if an exposition of the above 
hieroglyphics ! 

And yet, this is he who boasts of his having 
been " not sparing of ridicule' in those moments 
which he tells us, "he could steal from clerical and 
domestic avocations," — to tell lies of his country ! 

The speculation took, however, and he was fos- 
tered in his malice — riches and honours were 
showered upon him ! 

Well, he died — a monitory pause accompanies the 
sound — but the party must have a successor ! 

They " have found him" amongst themselves! — 
the author of the " Fine Arts in Ireland !" 

This fine gentleman has really exhibited some 
degree of tact, which shows him not unworthy of his 
appointment. He begins by denouncing, hoof and 
horn, every position of his predecessor ! Calls him, 
as a salvo, a " learned man ! " but insists upon his 
being a " most unskilful antiquary;" and though 
" dogmatic," " altogether a visionary." 

These, you would suppose, were great liberties to 
take with the foster-child of patronage. They were 
so, in appearance ; not in reality : for 

" Mutato nomine, de te fabula narratuv — " 

he is a modern*, and though of a different school, it 
suits their purpose as well. 

But let us see how he would decypher " the writ- 
ing upon the wall." 

" If we might venture a conjecture,'' he says, " it 

would be that the living figures represent the most 

distinguished native princes, who warred with the 

* I shall <jivc you my definition for this word by and by. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 333 

adventurers in defence of their country • and that 
those of the deceased kings were the patriot monarchs 
of earlier times!" 

Pray, what adventurers ? what ? — But the farce is 
too absurd to bestow discussion upon it. 

Come, however, to the crucifixion scene, what would 

« p ."make of this? 

" This appears," he says, " to represent the death 
of the young son of Dermod Mac Murrough, who was 
delivered up to Roderick O'Connor, as a hostage for 
his father's fidelity, and who, according to Cam- 
brensis, and, we believe, to our own annalists, was 
abandoned by that inhuman and ambitious parent to 
his fate ! 

After the flourish of trumpets, with which Mr. P 

had proclaimed independence of Dr. Ledwich, one 
would have expected a new ascription, or, at least, a 
different one, from him. This, however, is but a servile 
transcript from his predecessors work, and that too, 
without having the candour to quote him as his 
authority ! 

" But let us view those things with closer eyes.'' ■ 

Had Mac Murrough 's son been put to death by 
O'Connor, in that awful manner above delineated, 
with such external parade, and such mysterious 
pomp, think you that Cambrensis, who never omitted 
even the most trivial feature of a narrative, would have 
been blind to a particular, which must have inte- 
rested all his readers ? Yet, as to the reality of this 
— Mr. P 's insinuation notwithstanding — Cam- 
brensis is silent and mute as the grave ! 

A fact which was thought worthy to be commemo- 
rated in fresco must have been equally eligible as a 
phenomenon in writins. The O'Connors, therefore, 



334 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

whom Mr. P would install as the authors of this 

device, must have retained some documentary register 
thereof: and, though it is well known, that there is 
not a family in the kingdom, who have preserved the 
records of their house with such industry or minute- 
ness as they have, yet is there not so much as the 
semblance of an allusion to be traced amongst them, 
to this mysterious representation ! 

Nay, if O'Connor had put to death Mac Mur- 
rough's son, with such circumstances of torture and 
savage insensibility, is it probable that he would him- 
self be the person to immortalize his disgrace, by 
depicting it upon such a chronicle? And if the vir- 
tue of the nation were not previously outraged by 
the hellishness of the crime itself, would it not now 
blaze forth in holy indignation at the infatuated vanity 
of the monster, who, not satisfied with the murder of 
his innocent victim, must deluge his country also in 
gore, by associating it, to forthcoming ages, with this 
outline of his barbarity ? 

Yes, Sir, if they were silent as to the crime, they 
would be eloquent as to the 'painting ! — And it is not 
only that they would demolish the structure within 
which it was inscribed, but every quill within the 
realm would become a pen, every liquid be converted 
into ink, and every hand be made that of a writer, to 
rescue the island's fame from identity with the trai- 
tor's cause ; and confine to his own and his loathed 
head the withering execrations of posterity ! 

Instead of which, however, not a syllable is 
uttered, on paper or on parchment, allusive to the 
tragedy! Not a presage is imparted by mournful 
banshee ! nor elegy sung by familiar mna-caoinlha ! 
No historian records the heart-rending tale ! nor does 



THL ROUND TOWERS. 335 

gipsy retail it in itinerant ditty f But the mystery 
of sorrow, and the sanctity of truth, that hallowed the 
scene which this temple commemorates, has, still further, 
exerted its protecting instrumentality, and besides the 
moving evidences impiinted upon its interior, has added 
those also of exclusion from without, and prevented 
the iniquity of profane appropriation, by the occur- 
rence of any equivocal record ! 

The devices upon places of worship are always of 
a religious kind. — Would the perpetration of & faith- 
less infanticide be considered an act of religion ? And 
if not, why emblazon it within the tabernacle of 
prayer, with all the circumstances of grace and of 
grandeur around it ? — solemnized by kings ! superin- 
tended by gods ! and executed by judges ! 

Oh ! Sir, a dire plague of astringent benight- 
ment has lain brooding over history ! and spread, 
like the upas, its baneful emaciation over everything 
of culture that fell within its shadow ! But truth is 
immortal : and, however momentarily suppressed, will 
ultimately recover. 

ff It is a pleasure," says Bacon, il to stand on the 
shore, and to see ships tossed upon the sea ; a plea- 
sure to stand in the window of a castle, and to see a 
battle, and the adventures thereof below ; but no plea- 
sure is comparable to the standing on the vantage-ground 
of truth, (a hill not to be commanded, and where the 
air is always clear and serene,) and to see the errors, 
and wanderings, and mists, and tempests, in the vale 
below ; so always that this prospect be with pity, and not 
with swelling or pride. Certainly it is heaven upon 
earth to have a man's mind move in charity, rest in 
Providence, and turn upon the poles of truth." 

The very dresses, which adorn these venerable 



33G 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



delineations, are enough to redeem them from the 

turpitude which Mr. P— would impute to them. 

O'Connor and Mac Murrough were, neither of them, 
on this earth, for at least two thousand years after these 
were in vogue ! neither are they by any means the 

habits which P would persuade us that " laws 

were subsequently enacted to abolish as barbarous!" 
Behold ! I show you a mystery ! * 




What do you see here t ? What do you make of 

* ] Corinthians xv. 51. 

\ It will be perceived, that I do not mean this to be an exact copy of 
the Knockmoy Crucifixion — or viceversd. — The general idea is, what I 
mean to substantiate, and the identity of design cannot well be gain- 
said. This remark applies also to the kings about to be introduced by 
and by. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 337 

this Mr. P . Or do you think that O'Connor went 

over into Nubia, and got the impress of his enormity- 
canonized there also, in the form of a cross, within the 
temples and sanctuaries of the adoring Egyptians ? 

I copy this image from a work of great value, lately 
published in Paris by Monsieur Rifaud ; which he 
designates by the title of " Voyage en Egypte et en 
Nubie, et lieux circonvoisins." The plate under notice 
is but part of a larger one, which he describes as 
" Facade du petit temple de Kalabche (en Nubie) et 
ses details interieurs," and of which I shall, by and 
by, treat you to two more compartments, as the 
exact correspondents of the six crowned figures at 
Knockmoy. 

Meanwhile I beg leave to introduce to you on the 
next page, some of the sculptures on the Tuath-de- 
danaan cross, at old Killcullen, in the county of Kil- 
dare, Ireland. Here you distinguish nine Budhist 
priests in the Eastern uniform, with bonnet, tunic, 
and trowser — nay, with their very beards dressed 
after the Egyptian fashion ! 

Other figures I shall leave to your own research to 
unfold. But let me particularly fasten upon your 
faculty of comparing, the head-gear of the standing 
figure, in the second division, and that of the cruci- 
fixion upon the Nubian temple. Are they not criti- 
cally, accurately, and identically the same ? 

Look next at the brute animals that take part in 
this group ! Mind the grotesqueness of their posi- 
tions, and the combination of their character with that 
of man ! then lay your hand upon your breast, and, 
with the light now streaming in upon you, can you 
conscientiously believe that the cross which exhibits 

z 



338 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



itself at the other side, was ever the work of Chris- 
tianity *? 




But as you cannot imagine that O'Connor had gone 
over to Nubia, in the twelfth century of the Christian 
era, to get his murdered hostage deified in a pagan 
temple, built, perhaps, at the very lowest, three thou- 

* " "We saw," says Colonel Symes, alluding to the imperfect shell of 
a Budhist temple, in the Burrnan empire, " several unfinished figures 
of animals and men in grotesque attitudes, which were designed as 
ornaments for different parts of the building." — Embassy to the Court of 
Arn. 



THE HOUND TOWERS. 339 

sand years before his time, so neither can you impose 
upon us, that the Budhists stole a march upon our 
Christian supineness, and, while our different sects 
were fighting for who should have most, and proclaim- 
ing, " I am of Paul, and I of Apollos, and I of Ce- 
phas, and I of Christ *," imprinted their complexity 
upon our boasted simplicity, and then suddenly again 
vanished without having been once seen, felt, heard, 
discovered, or understood ! ! ! 

What entanglements will not people plunge them- 
selves into when supporting a bad cause ! And how 
easy is the road which rectitude follows ! 

The Hindoo Puranas corroborate, to an iota, this 
our Knockmoy crucifixion -\. Sulivahana is the name 
which they give to the deity there represented. The 
meaning of the word is tree-borne, or, who suffered 
death upon a tree. He was otherwise called Dhan- 
andhara, that is, the sacred almoner. And his fame, 
say the Puranas, reached even to the Sacred Island, 
in the sea of milk, that is, of Doghda, which signifies 
milk, and which was the title of the tutelar goddess 
of Ireland \. 

Avaunt, then, evermore to the humbug of back- 
reckoning, and the charge of imposture upon the 

* 1 Corinthians i. 12. 

•I- Asiatic Researches. 

% The name of Sulivan in Ireland, than which there is no one 
more common, is unquestionably but the perpetuation of the above Suli- 
vahana, And I can give a proof of the fact, independently of its deri- 
vation, which will scare ridicule into defiance. It is that a particular 
branch of that family called the O'Sulivans, of Tomies, have been ever 
looked upon with a feeling of reverence by the natives, almost approaching 
to veneration. I have in vain strove to ascertain from them the origin of 
this indefinable sense of sanctity. It was like magic upon their minds : 
they half worshipped them, and knew not why. There were but two 
individuals of this stock remaining when I was a schoolboy, a few years 
ago, at Killarney. 

z 2 



340 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Brahmins ! I flatter myself, I have laid an extin- 
guisher, for ever, upon that pretext. 

As I have before presumed to offer a suggestion to 
the translators of oriental manuscripts, I shall take the 
additional liberty of intimating, which I do with pro- 
found submission and respect, to the decypherers of 
all hieroglyphics, whether in Ireland or in the East, 
that those arrow-headed characters, to be met with at 
Persepolis, and resembling in their formation our 
Irish Oghams, bear reference, both of them, to this 
mysterious crucifixion ! And that if Mr. Champollion, 
and other gentlemen interested in the prosecution 
of those useful points, will attend to this my advice, 
they will find it a more certain key to the attainment of 
their desired object, than all the labour and outlay of 
centuries heretofore ! 

" Knowing that Nature never did betray 
The heart that loved her ; 'tis her privilege, 
Through all the years of this our life, to lead 
From joy to joy : for she can so inform 
The heart that is within us, so impress 
With quiet?iess and beauty, and so feed 
With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues, 
Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men, 
Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all 
The dreary intercourse of daily life, 
Shall e'er prevail against us, or disturb 
Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold 
13 full of blessings." — Wordsworth. 



341 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

The regal figures, which I promised, as belonging 
to the Nubian temple, and corresponding to the 
Knochnoy frescoes, are the following : — 




You will, furthermore, observe, how that they all 
wear the pkilibeg, like our crucified effigy at page 
296, and our war-god, Phearagh, at page 138. Each 



342 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



of them, also, is adorned with the cross, as the pass- 
port of their redemption : while the three divinities, 
delineated in the Irish scenes, have these as their 
counterparts in the temple of Nubia. 




Abbe Pluche states, that " the figures of those gods 
brought from Egypt into Phoenicia, wore on their 
heads leaves and branches, wings and globes, which," 
he adds, " appeared ridiculous to those who did not 
comprehend the signification of these symbols, as 
happened to Cambyses, king of Persia, but these 
represented Isis, Osiris, and Horus." 

" In the ' Gentleman's Magazine' for November, 
1742, is an account," says Vallancey, "of two silver 
images, found under the ruins of an old tower, which 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 343 

had raised various conjectures and speculations 
amongst the antiquaries ; they were about three 
inches in height, representing men in armour, with 
very high helmets on their heads, ruffs round their 
necks, and standing on a pedestal of silver, holding a 
small golden spear in their hands. The account is 
taken from the Dublin papers. The writer refers to 
Merrick's translation of Tryphiodorus, an Egyptian, 
that composed a Greek poem on the destruction of 
Troy, a sequel to ' Homer's Iliad,' to show that it 
was customary with the ancients, at the foundation 
of a fort or city, to consecrate such images to some 
titular guardians, and deposit them in a secret part 
of the building; where he also inserts a judicious 
exposition of a difficult text of Scripture on that 
subject." 

The above extract was indited long before the 
publication of those Nubian antiquities; and, conse- 
quently, when neither the contributor to the Maga- 
zine, nor the quoter from its columns, had any know- 
ledge of their existence. Its production, therefore, 
must be valuable here, as showing not only the con- 
nexion of the idols with the Round Tower ceremonial, 
but also that the helmets of the Nubian gods had 
been adopted in the effigies of some of those 
amongst us. 

I terminate my proofs of the primeval crucifixion, 
by the united testimonies of the Budhists and the Free- 
Masons. 

ie Though the punishment of the cross," say the 
Asiatic Researches, " be unknown to the Hindus, yet 
the followers of Buddha have some knowledge of it, 
when they represent Deva Thot (that is, the god 
Thoi) crucified upon an instrument resembling a 



344 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

cross, according to the accounts of some travellers to 
Siam." 

" Christianity," says Oliver, " or the system of 
salvation through the atonement of a crucified Medi- 
ator, was the main pillar of Freemasonry ever since 
the fall." 

Let me point your notice now to some consequences 
of that mysterious fact. I begin by asking — 

How happened it, that, of all places in the world, 
Ireland was that which gave the readiest counte- 
nance, and the most cheering support, to the Gospel 
of Christ, on its first promulgation ? 

This question you will consider of no trivial ten- 
dency. It is, in itself, worth a thousand other 
arguments. To solve it, I must premise, that, besides 
the many ancient appellatives, already given you, for 
this country, there was one, which characterised it, as 
anticipating that event ! 

Crioch-na-Fnineadhach* was this name. Its mean- 
ing is, the asylum of the expectants .•' or, the retreat of 
those looking forward. 

To what, you ask ? — To the consummation, I reply, 
of that prophecy, which was imparted to Israel 
through another source, saying, " the sceptre shall 
not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between 
his feet, until Shiloh come f." 

* " That is," says Keating, " the neighbouring country ! ! ! " as if a 
country would call itself by such a name! Vallancey ridicules, but 
bungles himself still more. And while reminded by this circumstance, 
I had best note, that what this last-mentioned writer, elsewhere, trans- 
lates as "the topographical names of Ireland," (Ainim abberteach an n 
Eirean,) should have been " the appellative names of Ireland :" they 
are the titles of the island itself,'not descriptions of the several localities 
within it. 

+ Genesis xlix. 10. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 345 

Numerous intimations have, from time to time, 
been conveyed to man, as harbingers of an event 
which was to crown their species with universal 
blessings. In the Puranas it was prophesied, that 
f * after three thousand and one hundred years of the 
Caliyuga are elapsed, will appear King Saca, to 
remove wretchedness from the world *." 

I have given an abstract of the history of this 
remarkable personage at pages 293 and 294 ; and, 
shortly after, at page 296, I presented you with the 
effigy of his crucifixion. As to the era of his appear- 
ance as deducible from the Yugas, I shall confine 
myself to the opinion advanced by Mr. Davis, in the 
*■ Asiatic Researches," vol. ix. page 243, where he 
states, " It may further with confidence be inferred, 
that Mans. Anquetil du Perrons conclusion, with 
respect to the late introduction of Yugas, which are 
the component parts of the Calpa into the Hindu 
astronomy, is unfounded ; and that the invention of 
those periods, and the application of them to computa- 
tions by the Hindus, must be referred to an antiquity 
which has not yet been ascertained.^ 

In another age was promised another Redeemer ; 
and of him I copy what Mr. Wilford transmits, as 
follows, viz. — 

" A thousand years before that event the goddess 
Cali had foretold him, that he would reign, or rather 
his posterity, according to several learned commenta- 
tors in the Dokhin, as mentioned by Major Mac- 
kenzie, till a divine child, born of a virgin, should 
put an end both to his life and kingdom, or to his 
dynasty, nearly in the words of Jacob, in Genesis, 

* Asiatic Researches. 



346 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

chap. xlix. ver. 10. The Hindu traditions concerning 
this wonderful child are collected in a treatise, called 
the ' Vicrama Chastra ; or, History of Vicrama Ditya.' 
This I have not been able to procure, though many 
learned pundits have repeated to me by heart whole 
pages from them. Yet I was unwilling to make use 
of their traditions till I found them in the large 
extracts made by the ingenious and indefatigable 
Major C. Mackenzie, of the Madras establishment, 
and by him communicated to the Asiatic Society." 

In truth, it was to the certainty of this manifesta- 
tion, that the first couplet of an Arabic elegy, pre- 
served by Mons. d'Herbelot, in his account of Ibnu- 
zaidun, a celebrated Andalusian poet, refers. In 
Roman letters, the lines run thus — 

" Jekad hein tenagikom dharmairna 
Jacdha alai'na alassa laula tassina." 

That is, " The time will soon come when you will 
deliver us from all our cares ; the remedy is assured, 
provided we have a little patience." 

The learned President of the Society of Bengal, 
unaware of the drift of this beautiful stanza, and 
without ever having so much as seen the original, 
whence it was quoted, offers to alter its import to 
the following, viz., " When our bosoms impart their 
secrets to you, anguish would almost fix our doom, if 
we were not mutually to console ourselves ! y ' And 
the only reason he assigns for this novel interpreta- 
tion is, that two individuals, neither of whom, he him- 
self admits, knew any thing about its meaning, hap- 
pened, or rather pretended, to put it for him, dif- 
ferently, into Arabic words ! 

On the pillar at Buddal, this emanation of the 
godhead is thus characterised — " He did not exult 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 347 

over the ignorant and ill-favoured : but spent his 
riches among the needy : in short, he was the wonder 
of all good men*." Isaiah's prophec}^ of the future 
Messiah would appear a verbatim, though more poeti- 
cal transcript of this inscription, viz., " He shall not 
cry, nor lift up ; nor cause his voice to be heard in 
the street : a bruised reed shall he not break, and the 
smoking flax shall he not quench : he shall bring- 
forth judgment unto truth '("." 

At page 110 of this volume, I have promised to 
explain the origin of the word Eleusinian, as applied to 
the celebration of certain religious rites. I have very- 
little doubt but that, when reading that declaration, 
the reader looked upon its offer as, to say the least, 
gratuitous — satisfied that the term could have no 
possible other meaning, than as an adjective formed 
from the substantive Eleusis ! 

Well, the rashness of that judgment I very freely 
forgive ; and repay it now by the verification of my 
contract. 

Eleusis, the place, and Eleusinian, as descriptive of 
the mysteries therein solemnized, were both denomi- 
nated in honour of that Advent, which all nations 
awaited ; and the fulfilment of which in the person 
of one of the Budhas, made him to be recognised, 
on one occasion, as the " source of the faith of the 
three epochs of the world J." 

* Asiatic Researches. 

t Chapter xlii. verses 2, 3. 

% Retiring into a still more solitary place, Gautama and his disciples 
sustained triumphantly an argument with two of their bitterest ene- 
mies. But a severer trial exhibited his righteousness in a yet clearer 
light. Four young and beautiful sisters, burning with unholy love, pre- 
sented themselves naked before him, and besought him to comply with 
their desires. " Who, O Gautame ! " said they, in the rage of their 



348 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

I have already redeemed the character of those 
ceremonies from the sinister imputations which 
attached to their secrecy. An apprehension that their 
publication would subvert the popular belief, or a 
supposed indelicacy in their tenour, were the mildest 
constructions which the unitiated would afford them. 
Though secure in the sufficiency of my former proofs, 
I cannot avoid taking support from an article in a 
very talented publication of our day, in which the 
writer, wholly uninstructed, while he evidently is, as to 
the nature of those celebrations, yet confirms the fact 
of their worth and their purity . 

" From the whole concurrent testimony of ancient 
history," says he, " we must believe that the Eleusi- 
nian mysteries were used for good purposes, for there 
is not an instance on record, that the honour of an 
initiation was ever obtained by a very bad man. 
The hierophants — the higher priests of the order — 
were always exemplary in their morals, and became 
sanctified in the eyes of the people. The high-priest- 
hood of this order in Greece was continued in one 
family, the Eumolpidse, for ages. In this they re- 
sembled both the Egyptians and the Jews. 

" The Eleusinian mysteries in Rome took another 
form, and were called the rites of Bona Dea ; but she 
was the same Ceres that was worshipped in Greece. 

disappointment, " who is the lying witness who dares attest that the 
virtues of all the former saints are concentrated in thee?" — " Behold 
my witness," said the sage, striking the ground with his hand ; and at 
the moment Okintongu, the tutelar genius of the earth, appeared, pro- 
claiming with a loud voice — " It is I who am the witness of the truth !" 
The young women then fell upon their faces, and adored Gautama, say- 
ing, " O pure and perfect countenance, wisdom more precious than gold ! 
majesty impenetrable ! honour and adoration to thee, thou source of 
the faith of the three epochs of the ivorld!" — Abridged from Klap- 
roth. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 349 

All the distinguished Roman authors speak of these 
rites and in terms of profound respect. Horace 
denounces the wretch who should attempt to reveal 
the secrets of these rites ; Virgil mentions these mys- 
teries with great respect ; and Cicero alludes to them 
with a greater reverence than either of the poets we 
have named. Both the Greeks and Romans punished 
any insult offered to these mysteries with the most 
persevering vindictiveness. Alcibiades was charged 
with insulting these religious rites ; and although 
the proof of his offence was quite doubtful, yet he 
suffered for it for years in exile and misery ; and it 
must be allowed that he was the most popular man of 
his age *." 

Analogous to these were the solemnities at Car- 
thage, designated by the name of Phiditia; and the 
import of which, as well in term as in substance, has 
been no less a riddle to antiquarians, than was 
the sanctified commemoration which it disguises. 
During the interval of their celebration, the youths 
received lessons from the elders of the state, as to 
the regulation of their conduct in after life ; and the 
lustre of truth, and the comeliness of virtue, as they 
shone forth in Budha, {which solves the myslery of the 
name,) were the invariable ethics they propounded. 

Public feasts were the scene for the delivery of 
those discourses. They found their way also to 
Rome, but the spirituality of Redemption not going 
hand-in-hand with its doctrine, or not duly compre- 
hended, if accompanying, thejoyousness of hope, was 
there sunk into the licentiousness of enjoyment, and 
the innocence of mirth and of moral hilarity was 

* Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, October 12, 1833. 



350 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

superseded by the uproar of riot and of vice ! Such 
were the Saturnalia. 

How different was their celebration in our " Sacred 
Ireland ! " The very letters of the epithet, by which 
our forefathers had solemnized them, show the 
spirituality of purpose which actuated their zeal. 
Nullog was that epithet — it is compounded of nua, 
new ; and log (for bullog), a belly, meaning rege- 
neration^ or the putting aside the old leaven of sin, 
and the assumption of the new investiture of right- 
eousness, by justification. 

As everything, however, in their religious proce- 
dure was transacted by symbols, so, in this instance, 
they did not content themselves with the inner con- 
sciousness of a new birth *, but they must go through 
the outer form of it by typification ; and for this end 
it was that they excavated those apertures in the 
bodies of rocks, which I have noticed in page 314, 
as calling forth, from ignorance, the animadversion of 
the devils yonies, in order that, by passing themselves 
through them, they might represent the condition of one 
issuing, through the womb, to a new scope of life f. 

A nobler method of symbol isation, and confined 
solely to the initiated, was that which characterised 
the construction of their subterranean temples. Here 
the sublimity of their worship breaks out in all the 

* This is the exact rendering of the name by which they called it : 
viz. nua vreith, or the being bom anew by the operation of grace. 

t It is still practised in the East. — " For the purpose of regeneration 
it is directed to make an image of pure gold of the female power of 
nature, in the shape either of a woman or of a cow. In this statue the 
person to be regenerated is inclosed, and dragged out through the usual 
channel. As a statue of pure gold, and of proper dimensions, would be 
too expensive, it is sufficient to make an image of the sacred Yoni, 
through which the person to be regenerated is to pass."— Wilford. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 351 

grandeur and the majesty of awe *. The narrowness 
of the entrance, never larger than the girth of the 
ordinary human body, portrayed, as well the circular 
passage in their regenerating type f , as the circumven- 
tion of temptation by which the faithful are ever 
beset \ ; while the model of the cross, which regulates 
their architecture withinside, attests the mystery and the 
form of their master s death. 

The Mithratic temple, at New Grange, is exactly 
so constructed. After squeezing yourself, with much 
labour, through a long emblematic gallery, you arrive 
at a circular room, or rather an irregular polygon, or 
octagon^; whence, at measured intervals, three other 

* See page 3—78, and 162. 

+ Be it remembered, that it was in consequence of his ignorance of 
the principle of regeneration that our Saviour addressed Nicodemus in 
these cutting words, viz. " Art thou a master of Israel, and knowest not 
these things ?" thereby recognising the existence of the doctrine before 
his own manifestation to that people. 

t Enter ye in at the strait gate : for wide is the gate and broad is 
the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in 
thereat : because strait is the gate and narrow is the way which leadeth 
unto life ; and few there be that find it. — Matthew vii. 13, 14. 

§ " The dome (of this, what he calls a cemetery) springs at various 
unequal heights, from eight to nine and ten feet on different sides, form- 
ing at first a coving of eight sides. At the height of fifteen or six- 
teen feet, the north and south sides of this coving runs to a point like 
a gore, and the coving continues its spring with six sides ; the east 
side coming to a point next, it is reduced to five sides, the west next ; 
and the dome ends and closes with four sides ; not tied with a key- 
stone, but capped with a flag- stone of three feet ten inches, by three 
feet five. The construction of this dome is not formed by key-stones, 
whose sides are the radii of a circle, or of an ellipsis converging to a 
centre. It is combined with great long fiat stones, each of the upper 
stones projecting a little beyond the end of that immediately beneath it; 
the part projecting, and weight supported by it, bearing so small a pro- 
portion to the weight which presses down the part supported; the 
greater the general weight is which is laid upon such a cove, the firmer 
it is compacted in all its parts." — Pownall. 



352 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

apartments diverge, forming, with the in-leading gut, 
a perfect cross ; and presenting, altogether, to a sus- 
ceptible mind, the most solemn combination of symboli- 
cal mysteries * / 

I wonder why do not our moderns confer these 
subterraneous cruciform edifices upon the industry of 
the early Christians, as they have strove to claim for 
them the corresponding structures above-ground ! and 
without half the probability of success ! For if it may 
be stated, that the crucifixions upon the towers were 
an interpolation, with a view to Christianise what 
before was devoted to Paganism, no one, at all events, 
would maintain that the monks had gone down into 
the bowels of the earth, and after ejecting the inmates 
of old Alma Mater, converted their tabernacles into a 
magical cross ! 

Nay, a greater difficulty would still attach to this 
adventure. The Pagodas f of Benares and Mathura. 
the two principal ones in all India, are cruciformly 
built ! and, in order to make both worlds harmonize, 
the advocates for the monks, or rather their beliers, 
would have to transport their mechanics to those 
regions also, and turn upside-down, and sideways, 
and every way, whatever was the shape of the ori- 

* " The eight sides of this polygon are thus formed : the aperture 
which forms the entrance, and the three niches, or tabernacles, make 
four sides, and the four imposts the other four." — Pownall. 

t This word I have already derived, after the example of other writers, 
from peutgeda, or house of idols, so misnamed by Europeans. I must 
state, however, that another explication is also assigned thereto, and 
that is, a perversion of the term bhaga-vati, or holy house. But with 
great respect to the gentlemen who incline to the latter opinion, I have 
to observe that bhaga-vati, properly signifies the sacred Yoni : and, 
therefore, that however applicable to a subterraneous temple, or OCtve, 
it could by no means represent an erect building. 



TIFF. ROUNTD TOWERS. 353 

aal structures, until thev moulded them, at last, 
into this mysterious cross ! 

Some blame, however, would seem attachable to 
the superintendents of this vision: and it is, that, while 
imprinting this mark over the head of the principal 
figure, in the cave, or Mithratic temple, at Ele- 
phanta *, they neglected to demolish the Lin gam, 
appertaining to the previous worship ; and which 
actually presents itself but a little from it in the 
front ! ! ! 

To be grave — There was nothing more natural 
than that those different symbols should be thus 
united. I have shown, that in the various copies of 
our annals, the Round Towers, or over-ground temples, 
are designated by the name of Fidh-nemead, the 
meaning of which I have elucidated to be, the conse- 
crated Lingams : the Mithratic caves, or under-ground 
temples, their correspondents, it was to be expected, 
should be known by a suitable denomination ; and, 
accordingly, you will find this very one at New 
Grange, mentioned in the u Chronicon Scotorum," 
by the title of Fiodh Aoligusa ; that is, the Myste- 

* " The entrance into this temple, which is entirely hewn out of a 
stone resembling porphyry, is by a spacious front supported by two 
massy pillars and two pilasters forming three openings, under a thick 
and steep rock, overhung by brushwood and wild shrubs. The long 
ranges of columns that appear closing in perspective on every side ; the 
flat roof of solid rock that seems to be prevented from falling only by the 
massy pillars, whose capitals are pressed down and flattened as if by the 
superincumbent weight ; the darkness that obscures the interior of the 
temple, which is dimly lighted only by the entrances ; and the gloomy 
appearance of the gigantic stone figures ranged along the wall, and 
hewn, like the whole temple, out of the living rock, — joined to the strange 
uncertainty that hangs over the history of this place, — carry the mind 
back to distant periods, and impress it with that kind of uncertain and 
religious awe with which the grander works of ages of darkness are 
generally contemplated."— Erskine. 

2 A 



354 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

rious Cavern of Budh ; while the crucifixions upon the 
former, and the cruciform shape of the latter, are the 
reverential memorials of his atoning- dissolution. 

The mysteries celebrated within the recesses of 
those caverns were precisely of that character which 
are called Free-masonic, or Cabiric. The significa- 
tion of this latter epithet is, as to written letters, a de- 
sideratum. Selden has missed it ; so has Qrigen, and 
Sophocles. Strabo too, and Montfaucon, have been 
equally astray. Hyde was the only one who had any 
idea of its composition, when he declared " it was a 
Persian word, somewhat altered from Gabri, or Guebri, 
and signifying fire-worshippers." 

It is true that Gabri now stands for fire-worshippers, 
but that is only because that they assumed to them- 
selves this title, which belonged to another order of 
their ancestors. The word is derived from gabh, a 
smith, and ir, sacred, meaning the sacred smiths ; 
and Cabiri, being only a perversion of it, is, of course, 
in substance, of the very same import. 

Mount Caucasus*, also, which still, in our language, 
retains its original pronunciation, of Gaba-casan, or the 
Smith's Path, was named from the same root ; nor is 
the tradition of the reason altogether obliterated from 
those who dwell beside it, if we may judge from a 
ceremony described by a recent traveller, as performed 
by them, as follows : — 

" The original founders of the Tartarian Munga- 
lian Scythians, called Cajan and Docos, got embar- 
rassed amongst those mountains, then uninhabited. 

* " This appellation, Caucasus, at least in its present state, is not 
Sanscrit; and as it is not of Grecian origin, it is probable that the 
Greeks received it through their intercourse with the Persians. 

W 1 1. FORD. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 355 

After a sojourn there of 450 years, having become 
so numerous as to require other settlements, they 
were at a loss to find a passage through the moun- 
tains, when a smith, pointing out to them a place 
very rich in iron ore, advised them to make great 
fires there, by which means the ore melted, and a 
broad passage was opened for them. In commemo- 
ration of which famous march, the Monguls, to this 
day, celebrate an annual feast, and observe the cere- 
mony of heating a piece of iron red hot, on which 
the Ceann (that is the chief) strikes one blow with a 
hammer, and all the persons of quality do the same 
after him." 

I shall close this chapter by the description given 
of the destruction of Cambyses's army in the Nubian 
desert, after the insults offered by him to the Cabin 
priests. 

" Gnomes, o'er the waste, you led your myriad powers, 
Climb'd on the whirls, and aim'd the flinty showers ; 
Onward resistless rolls the infuriate surge, 
Clouds follow clouds, and mountains mountains urge ; 
Wave over wave the driving desert swims, 
Burst o'er their heads, inhumes their struggling limbs ; 
Man mounts on man, on camels camels rush, 
Hosts march o'er hosts, and nations nations crush : 
Wheeling in air, the winged islands fall — 
And one great sandy ocean covers all*." 

* Darwin. 



2 a 2 



35G 



CHAPTER XXV. 

On the east side of the river Shannon, about ten 
miles distant from Athlone, in the barony of Garry- 
castle, and King's county, is situated the Sanctuary 
of Clonmacnoise. Within the narrow limits of two 
Irish acres, are here condensed more religions ruins, 
of antiquarian value, than are to be found, perhaps, 
in a similar space in any other quarter of the habit- 
able world. 

Nine churches, built respectively by the indivi- 
duals whose names they bear, viz., 1. that of Ma- 
carthy More ; 2. that of Melaghlin ; 3. that of Mac 
Dermott; 4. that of Hiorphan ; 5. that of Kieran ; 
6. that of Gawney ; 7. that of O'Kelly; and 8. that 
of O'Connor ; — independently of the cathedral, — 
here moulder, in kindred mortality, with the ashes 
of nobles, of princes, and of kings, entombed be- 
neath their walls ; and who, at feud, mayhap, in 
' life, are now content to sleep, beside each other, 
" their warfare o'er," in the levelling indistinction of 
death ? 

Your curiosity is, no doubt, excited to know, how 
so circumscribed a little spot could have been chosen 
as the nucleus of such ecclesiastical ambition? The 
answer is found in the circumstance of this having 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 357 

been one of the strongholds of Budhism, in the days 
of its confiscations, which made it now be singled 
out, in common with other places memorable for that 
creed, as the appropriate locality for Christian super- 
incumbency. 

Two Round Towers, the chief object of emulation, 
are^ as you may have supposed, here to be encount- 
ered : and these are the very ones, which the reader may 
recollect have been alluded to at page 38, as ridicu- 
lously claimed by Montmorency for Christian — be- 
cause, forsooth, in the vagueness of popular titles, 
they are recently distinguished by the names of Mac 
Carthy and CRourke ! 

The eastern columns, denominated after Pompey * 
and Cleopatra f, have been equally productive of his- 
torical mistakes ; until, at last, it has appeared, that 
those celebrated lovers have had no more to do with 
such erections, than have had the O'Rourfces or Mac- 
Carthys with our Round Towers ! 

Here also are three crosses, belonging to the same 
religion, to one of which only shall I now direct your 
observation. It is fifteen feet high, composed of a 
single stone, and sculptured with imagery of the most 
elegant execution. 

The devices upon this sculpture are such as you 
would have expected from the authors of the Alle- 

* " If perfection in art consist in affording continued pleasure, its 
achievements, when contemplating this column, must he deemed insur- 
passahle. A Corinthian capital of 10 feet is poised on a shaft of 67^ 
feet, the latter resting on a base of 21 ^ feet ; the whole rises to a height 
of nearly 100 feet." — Head. 

t " Of the obelisks, commonly called Cleopatra's Needles, one alone is 
now standing ; the other, lying down, measures seven feet square at the 
base, and 66 feet in length. They are so well known, that it is not 
necessary to give a very particular description of them." — Clarke. 



358 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



gory of the Paradisiacal Fall : and here, accord- 
ingly, it presents itself, just as in language they had 
clothed it, in all the mysteriousness of the figura- 
tive tree. 

Immediately over the equestrian and chariot sports, 
which decorate the pedestal, you see Adam and Eve 




conversing at each side of this symbol of their dearly- 
bought knowledge! Farther up are other emblems of 
mythological allusion : while, in the centre above, 
you observe a Cabir priest, alias, a Free-mason, hold- 
ing the implements of his craft— a high honour — in 



THE ROUND TOM' E US. 359 

his hand*; and encompassed by a retinue of several 
more persons, all in the glow of joy ! 

The other sides, though less complex, are not less 
graceful, nor less significant, than the two which I 
have introduced. In them, also, everything bears 
reference to the Budhist ceremonial. Nor are the 
mouldings and the flowerings, the net-works, and other 
ornaments which figure upon them, the least essential 
constituent of that fruitful code |", — while the perso- 
nation of a dog, — an invariable accompaniment, as 
it is also amongst the sculptures at Persepolis, and 
other places in the east, — would, in itself, be sufficient 
to fix the appropriation of those crosses, as that ani- 
mal can have no possible relation to Christianity, 
whereas, by the Tuath-de-danaans, it was accounted 
sacred, and its maintenance enjoined by the ordinances 
of the state, as it is still in the Zend books, which 
remain after Zoroaster. 

To Clondalkin Tower, represented at page 101, 
there belongs also a stone cross, and bearing its own 
history upon its Tiiath-de-danaan countenance. In 
Armagh is another. I cannot afford time to point out 
any more, but that at Finglas is too remarkable to be 
quite neglected. 

Every body is acquainted with the legendary tale 

* In confirmation of this, you will find at page 14 of Seguin's " Thes- 
salonian Coins," the impression of a man with a hammer, as above, in 
one hand, and a key in the other, and the word Cabeiros as the in- 
scription. 

■I- On all public occasions displays of this kind are still indulged in 
the east. The floralia of the Romans were adopted from the easterns. 
" Every person, male and female, had festoons depending from the top of 
the cap down one side of the head. These were composed of the flowers 
of the wild rose and hawthorn, and other beautiful kinds, which, while 
they set off the head-piece of the lieges, literally perfumed the air 
wherever they went.'' — -Archer. 



360 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

of St. Patrick having banished all venomous reptiles 
from this island. Now, I am very willing, as has 
been shown, to give this apostle all the credit which 
he deserves; but I am a chronicler of truth, and 
from me he shall have no romances. Solinus, who 
flourished A.D. 190, that is, above two centuries 
before St. Patrick was born, has noticed the pheno- 
menon of there being no vipers here. Isidore has 
repeated it in the seventh century ; as has Bede in 
the eighth ; and, in the ninth, Donatus, the famous 
Bishop of Fesula. This exemption, therefore, cannot 
be attributable to St. Patrick, whose honour would be 
better consulted by his religious admirers,, in confin- 
ing themselves to facts, which are numerous enough, 
than in shocking credibility by their pious frauds. 

As to the local phenomenon, to which you perceive 
he can have no pretensions, I cannot resist bestowing 
upon it a passing observation. Bede, I think, has gone 
so far as to say, that not only are there no snakes to 
be found in Ireland, but that they would not live, if 
imported : nay, that, when brought within sight of 
the shore, they expire ! I should like to see this 
ascertained ; if the fact be such, then the question 
is solved, the air or the soil is the cause. 

But if the case be otherwise, then must we ascribe 
it to some human instrumentality; and, as there occur 
various texts in Scripture, allusive, it would seem, 
to a very prevailing opinion in the east, as to the 
manageableness of that species, by the power of 
charms, — such as, " I will send serpents, cockatrices, 
among you, which will not be charmed" — (Jeremiah 
viii. 17); and " the deaf adder that stoppeth her 
ear, which will not hearken to the voice of charmers, 
charming never so wisely" — (Psalm lvii. 4, 5) ; — and 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 361 

as our Tuath-de-danaans, who were an eastern 
people, are recorded by all our early ecclesiastical 
writers, and with no view to encomium, as so emi- 
nent for incantations, that the island seemed, during 
their sway, to have been one continuation of enchant- 
ment, it is past doubt, that, if practicable by man's 
efficacy at all, the merit of extinction belongs solely 
to them. — And it is well worth notice, that the island 
of Crete, where a colony of them also had settled, is 
said to be gifted with a similar exemption. '"' The 
professed snake-catchers in India," says Johnson, 
" are a low caste of Hindoos, wonderfully clever in 
catching snakes, as well as in practising the art of 
legerdemain ; they pretend to draw them from their 
holes by a song, and by an instrument resembling an 
Irish bagpipe, on which they play a plaintive tune*." 

Every legend, however, is founded upon reality, 
and I will unfold to you from what has Joceline con- 
cocted this about St. Patrick. All the crosses of the 
Tuath-de-danaans had snakes engraved upon them. 
Look back at that at Killcullenf, and you will see 
them there still, and more plainly, by and by, upon 
that at Kells. These to the Irish were objects of 
reverence, because of the passions which they symbo- 
lized ; and accordingly the Saint, in order to obviate 
the recurrence of such contemplations, effaced them, 
when practicable, from off the stones J. 

* Sketches of India Field-sports. Dr. Shaw and Mr. Forbes are even 
more conclusive. 

t Page 338. 

% If you examine the Tuath-de-danaan crosses with a minute eye, 
you will find this exposition irrefutably verified. Though they all have 
the traces of the Budhist sculpture, they have also the marks of oblite- 
ration; and no one of them to- a greater extent than this at Finglas, 



362 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

The same precisely was the course, but with a less 
hallowed intention, which the Moslems had pursued 
in the dissemination of their creed. " Whenever," 
says Archer, " these figures were introduced, the 
fanatic Moslem had hammered away all those within 
his reach ; and when this process was too slow for 
the work of demolition, another mode of obliteration 
was requisite. Whole compartments of sculpture 
were plastered over to hide the profane imagery ! In 
clearing away the rubbish, to bring these beautiful 
remains to light, the engineer stumbled on a long 
frieze, part of which had had the destroying mallet 
passed over it; but this method of despatch was not 
active enough, and that portion which had escaped 
violence, had been plastered over with a composition 
of the colour of the stone *." 

We read also in the Puranas, as an historical 
circumstance, that the whole serpent race had been 
destroyed by Janamijaya, the son of Parieshit, which, 
in truth, only implies, as the talented professor of 
Sanscrit in Oxford University has already remarked, 
" the subversion of the local and original supersti- 

where it is known that St. Patrick principally resided. Yet even this 
retains indistinct evidence of snakes, &c. &c. &c. 

" The body of the snake is not only capable of flexion, but of close 
and intimate application to every rugged inequality of a tree on the 
earth ; and this faculty is the result of its minute subdivisions. The 
body of the snake is never bent in acute angles, but always in flowing 
easy curves or circles. From each of those distant bones, so multitu- 
dinous in their number, which form tbe vertebral column, (and in one 
species of Pythra we have counted 256, exclusive of those composing the 
tail,) a rib arises from each side, and both together form a great portion 
of a circle, so as to embrace nearly the whole circumference of the body. 
These ribs are restricted to the vertebra) of the body only ; they do not 
arise from those of the tail.'' 

* Travels in Northern India. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 363 

tion, and the erection of the system of the Vedas upon 
its ruins." 

St. Patrick, in like manner, having established 
Christianity here, in supercedence of a religion, the 
most prominent symbols of which were snakes, cocka- 
trices, and serpents, may be truly said to have extir- 
pated their race from the country, but, as you see, in 
an acceptation heretofore unexplained. 

The statement given by Major Archer of the sym- 
bolic representations upon one of the Indian temples, 
as well as the particulars of its fate, are so perfectly 
in unison with what I have been describing, that I 
must be excused if I give it a place here. 

" Reached Burwah-Saugor," says he. — " Imme- 
diately on the right is a Hindoo temple, which I think 
one of the rarest sights, on the score of architecture 
and sculpture, which have gratified our curiosity. 
The work of the chisel would have immortalised the 
artist had he lived in the present day. I have never 
seen its execution rivalled, although tolerably conver- 
sant with similar objects of art. The elegance of 
design — the arrangement of the figures, which were 
too numerous to be computed — the position of them 
— the sharp and bold relief — and the elaborate orna- 
ments of foliage and animals, render it one of the 
most remarkable monuments of art it is possible to 
conceive. There are compartments on the lintels of 
the doors and the entablature, four deep ; figures of 
the subordinate deities in the voluminous code of Bra- 
mah, symbols of their attributes, sacred utensils, and 
animals. Two vases are on the threshold, which, for 
shape and execution, would compete the palm of 
excellence with Grecian art. Wreaths of snakes, 
and groups of men and women, are on the columns, 



364 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

which also have their ornaments, and are well pro- 
portioned. 

{i I could not resist a second visit to this edifice, 
which, at the risk of appearing opinionative, I can 
seriously aver, I never saw equalled for richness and 
taste ; but the hand of intolerant bigotry has marred 
the work of fair proportion. The fanatical Moslems, 
who over-ran the country in the time of Acbar, broke 
and defaced every image they saw ; and, with few 
exceptions, the head of every figure, of any size or 
importance, has been demolished ; and nothing re- 
mains but relics, which attest the advance of the arts 
at the time the structure was reared. " 

The effects of fanaticism are the same in all ages. 
It desecrates alike human and divine laws. St. Pa- 
trick was no fanatic ; and accordingly, in his course, 
what he could not himself comprehend, he was 
resolved, at all events, to have respected. Those 
crosses, therefore, which had previously been looked 
upon with an eye of veneration, though the cause had 
long ceased to be transmitted, he literally Christianised, 
by removing the sculpture; and thus were they made, 
in the ritual of the new religion, as hallowedly 
expressive as they were ever before. 

Precisely similar was the system pursued by the 
missionaries in India. 

" The island of Salsette," says Captain Head, 
" abounds in mythological antiquities and pagan 
temples — two gigantic figures of Buddha, near twenty 
feet high, of complete preservation, which they owe 
to the zeal of the Portuguese, who painted them red, 
and converted the place they ornamented to a Catholic 
chapel." 

The Pantheon at Rome was new modelled in the 



THE ROUND TOWERS, 365 

.nine manner. In a word, as Grotius has before 
affirmed, " infinite appropriations have been made." 

But, independently of this conversion, the con- 
formity itself between the Christian and the Budhist 
religion was so great, that the Christians, who 
rounded the Cape of Good Hope with Vasco de 
Gama, performed their devotions in an Indian temple, 
on the shores of Hindostan ! Nay, " in many parts 
of the Peninsula," say the Asiatic Researches, " Chris- 
tians are called, and considered as followers of 
Buddha, and their divine legislator, whom they 
confound with the apostle of India, is declared to be 
a form of Buddha, both by the followers of Brahma 
and those of Siva ; and the information I had received 
on that subject is confirmed by F. Paulino." 

It was not so with those who made religion a 
trade, and only the auxiliary pass-word to their 
selfish aggrandisement ! When the " abomination of 
desolation*" swept over this country, and strewed 
the verdure of its surface with the indiscriminate 
fragments of cathedrals, of castles, and of towers, the 
crosses but as little escaped the scourge ! 

Having had occasion to pass through Finglas, on 
their march to the siege of Drogheda, and fancying 
the cross, which stood there, to have been necessarily 
the erection of obnoxious Romanism, they gave it an 
iconoclast blow, which broke its shaft into two ! Thus 
decapitated, it fell. But the citizens, wishing to 
avoid further profanation, soon as ever the army eva- 
cuated the town, took the. disjointed relic, and buried 
it, very decorously, within the confines of the church- 
yard ! 

Here it remained, in consecrated interment, until 

* Oliver Cromwell with his army of locusts. 



366 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



the beginning of the year 1816, when an old man of 
the parish, recounting anecdotes of by-gone times, 
mentioned, amongst others, the particulars of this 
tradition, and excited some curiosity by the narrative. 
The Rev. Robert Walsh was then curate of Finglas, 
and this mysterious history having reached his ears, 
he determined forthwith to ascertain its evidences. 
His first step was to see the chronicler himself.- — 




This personage's name was Jack White. Jack, who 
was himself well stricken in years, told him, that he 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 367 

had learned, a long while ago, from his father, who was 
then himself rather elderly, that he had been shown, 
by his still older grandfather, the identical spot where 
the cross had been concealed, and could point it out 
now to any one with certainty and preciseness. 

The proposal was accepted ; workmen were em- 
ployed ; and, after considerable perseverance, the 
cross was exhumed! its parts re-united by iron cramps ! 
and re-erected, as opposite, within a short distance of 
the scene of its subterranean slumbers ! as if in 
renascent triumph over the destroyer ! 

Let such approach this consecrated land 

And pass in peace along the magic waste : 

But spare its relics — let no busy hand 

Deface the scene, already how defaced ! 

Not for such purpose were those altars placed : 

Revere the remnants nations once revered ; 

So may our country's name be undisgraced, 

So mayst thou prosper where thy youth was reared, 

By every honest joy of love and life endeared*. 

* Byron. 



o 



' :> 0H 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

It will be borne in mind, that everything hitherto 
advanced, on the various topics, which we have been 
discussing, was the sheer result of internal reasoning, 
and of personal circumspection — that, wherever ex- 
trinsic aid was brought forward in support of this 
unbeaten track, it was uniformly in the shape of con- 
clusions, deduced from the premises of reluctant wit- 
nesses. I rejoice, with delight unspeakable, that I 
have it, at last, in my power, to range myself, side by 
side, with an author, whose testimony in this matter 
must be considered decisive, but which, however, by 
some strange aberration of intellect, has never before 
been understood ! 

Cormac*, the celebrated bishop of Cashel, and 
one of the first scholars who ever flourished in any 
country, when defining the Round Towers, in his 
Glossary of the Irish Language, under the name of 
Gaill^, says, that they were " Cartha cloacha is aire 
bearor gall desucder Fo bilk ro ceata suighedscat en 
Eire," — that is, stone-built monuments, within which 
noble judges used to inclose vases containing the 
relics of Fo (i. e. Budh), and of which they had erected 
hundreds throughout Ireland ! 

* Some say he belonged to the fifth century. All agree thai it was 
not later than the ninth. 
•I* See page 61. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 369 

Knowing that the Ceylonese Dagobs, a name which 
literally signifies houses of relics, were appurtenances of 
Budhism, I intreated of a very intelligent native of that 
island, who attended the Vihara, at Exeter Hall, some 
time ago, that he would favour me with a written 
outline of his views of those structures. After a few 
days he very civilly obliged me with the following : — 

" Travellers to the eastern countries often have 
their notice attracted by numerous buildings of a 
singular form and of enormous sizes, both in ruins 
and in preserved states, about the origin and objects 
of which, many inquiries have been made, and various 
conclusions drawn. These are monuments raised in 
ancient times to the memory of deified persons, and 
called Chaityas, to which places devotees used to resort 
for meditation, especially those who had any particular 
veneration for the deceased, whose relics are supposed 
to be deposited within, and on whose virtues they 
quietly reflect, availing themselves of the solitude 
of such places ; and if in their own imaginations the 
personages are deified, they make offerings of lamp- 
light, &c. 

" In exploring the ruins of these pyramids, the 
inside of the globes are found to contain loose earth, 
merely filled up after the arches had been raised ; in 
such loose earth are found ancient coins of various 
metals, supposed to be thrown in, in token of respect 
or veneration, whilst building ; but in the very centre 
of the globe is always found a square well, paved 
with bricks, and the mouths covered by hewn granite, 
borne on granite supporters, standing in the four 
corners of the square (sometimes triangular). In this 
well, if the monument of a king, (and if not robbed by 

2 B 



370 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

ancient invaders,) will be found the urn, containing 
the relics of the deceased, and treasure to a consider- 
able worth. Sometimes there may be discovered a 
piece of beaten gold, or other metal, with engravings, 
mentioning the name and other circumstances of the 
deceased. If a Buddhist king, idols of Buddha 
might be found in it — but in others, sometimes 
earthen or metallic lamps, and heads of cobra de 
capellas. 

" In similar monuments, erected for the relics of 
Buddha, are three different compartments or depo- 
sitories ; one in the bottom of the foundation, one in 
the heart of the globe, and one at the top of the 
globe within the column. This column always has 
its basis upon the granite covering of the well. In 
monuments of this description are supposed to be 
much buried treasure, especially in the foundations. 
The Paly book, Toopahwanse, gives account of the 
distribution of the Buddha's relics to the different 
parts of the world, and the erection of such monu- 
ments over them. 

" Monuments of eminent Buddhist high priests are 
sometimes erected very high, but no treasure is to be 
expected in them, excepting sometimes books en- 
graved on metal ; but the tomb of the poorest prince 
is never without (at least in models) a golden crown, 
a sword of the same metal, a pair of metallic shoes, 
and a similar parasol. 

" Besides having learnt from tradition and ancient 
documents, the writer has seen the discovery of the 
tomb of a prince, in which these articles were found, 
with a plate of gold, stating the name of the prince, 
his age, death, &c, which he had the pleasure to 



THE HOUND TOWERS. 371 

transcribe ; the characters were in a different form 
from those now used in the same language, and 
hardly intelligible. 

" The writer also had the pleasure of exploring the 
ruins of a very lofty Dagob that stood opposite to the 
establishment of the Church Missionaries in Ceylon. 
It was found to have been the tomb of a monarch, 
and had the appearance of having been robbed of the 
wealth it very likely contained, upwards of a century 
ago, as the trees that were growing on it indicated. 
A large quantity of ancient coins, and metal of dif- 
ferent kinds, melted into various shapes, (perhaps 
with burning of the corpse,) were however collected. 

" Ceylon contains many ancient pyramids of the 
kind in a preserved state, and protected by the people, 
which are supposed to contain much wealth, but the 
superstitious do not dare to explore, and others fear 
the laws, which will permit violence to no man's 
feelings*." 

Having before shown how that the religion of 
the ancients was interwoven with their funeral ob- 
servances, this ocular testimony was alone requisite 
to gain credence for my proofs. I can still further 
adduce the authority of Dr. Hurd f, to show that 
the Gaurs of India, to this day, make use of the 
Round Towers J in their neighbourhood, as places of 
burial, lifting up the dead bodies to the elevated door 
by means of ladders and pullies. None of those 
three writers have attempted anything more than a 

* " July, 1833." — This gentleman's name was Pareira. 

+ Religious Rites and Ceremonies. 

% The Gaurs themselves did not huild those towers, but rinding them 
to their hand, and knowing them to have been formerly reverenced, they 
converted them to this purpose. 

2 b 2 



372 J HE ROUND TOWERS. 

statement of the actualities, therefore will I be 
excused if, in addition to what has been already 
detailed, I observe that, sublime and philosophic as 
was the intent of the phallic configuration of those 
edifices, applied to religion, it was incomparably more 
so, considered in reference to sepulture ; for while, 
in the former, it merely typified the progress of 
generation and vitality, in the latter it suggested the 
more ennobling hope of a future renascence and a 
resurrection. 

That the reader, now aware of the " secret" which 
directed the form and elevation of our Sabian Towers, 
should not be surprised at the affinity which I have 
before pointed out between them and the two "pillars" 
which stood at the door of Solomon's Temple*, I 
shall tell him that the whole internal construction of 
this latter edifice, as well as those outer and partial 
ornaments, bore direct relation to the anatomical 
organism of man himself. 

* One called Jachen, that is, he shall establish ; and the other Boaz, 
or in it is strength. This was all emblematical, which, without giving 
Solomon any participation therein, may be accounted for on the prin- 
ciple, that the building was conducted under the superintendence of 
Hiram, a Sidonian, who naturally had exercised the taste of his own 
country in the discretion here allowed him. Nor will the circumstance 
of those pillars having been made of metal oppose any barrier— the 
design is the thing to be considered, not the material. And besides, we 
find them of metal elsewhere also. 

" An iron pillar,'' says Archer, " stands in a sort of court-yard, having 
the remains of cloisters on the four sides. Its history is veiled in darkest 
night. There is an inscription on it, which nobody can decipher : nor 
is there any account, historical or traditional, except we may refer to the 
latter class, a prevalent idea of all people, that the pillar is on the 
most sacred spot of the old city, which spot was also its centre. It is 
also said, that as long as the pillar stood, so long would Hindostan 
flourish. This was the united dictum of the Bramins and astrologers of 
the day. The pillar is fifteen or sixteen inches in diameter." 



THE &OUND TOWERS. 373 

To instance only the most prominent of those ana- 
logies, you will find the " holy" and the " most 
holy" bear the same relation to each other, as the 
cerebrum and cerebellum of the human mechanism. 
Nor need this at all be wondered at, seeing- that, 
from the very faintest reflection, it must suggest itself 
to the most indolent, that the divine ingenuity most 
prominently shines forth in the human anatomy ; and 
that, therefore, from the exalted sentiments which this 
is calculated to inspire of the Godhead, " the noblest 
study of mankind is man *." 

Viewing it in this light, and coupling it with that 
piety which is known to have animated the bosom 
of David's anointed son, I cannot pass on without 
participating in that sublime exclamation, which 
bespoke at once his gratitude and his humility, 
after the consummation of his mighty task. " But 
will God," said he, "indeed dwell on earth? Be- 
hold ! the heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot 
contain thee, how much less this house that I have 
builded -\ !" 

Now to the era for the erection of our Round 
Towers. " As they have neither dates nor inscrip- 
tions," says Sir John Ware, " and as history is silent 
on that head, it cannot be expected that I should 
point out the time when they were erected in this 
country J." — A very cheap way, certainly, of getting 
over a difficulty ! The same was the mode adopted 
by him, and with equal candour, a few pages earlier, 
as to the development of their destination, when he 
says — " I confess it is much easier to combat and 

* u,v6(>wri>; tirri rcuv tfuvrav {tt-rgov. — PllOTAGOKAS. 

t 1 Kings viii. 27. 
% Antiquities of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 134. 



374 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

overthrow everything that has been hitherto advanced 
by writers in favour of the Danish claim to these 
monuments of antiquity and the uses of them, than 
to substitute anything solid and satisfactory in their 
room*." But inasmuch as the latter problem has 
been solved, one is led to conclude, that the obstacles 
to the former are but imaginary also. 

To begin then — Camden, speaking of them, in the 
thirteenth century, says, he believes them to have 
been erected in the seventh, but does not know by 
whom ! But I put it to any rational thinker to say, 
whether, if they had been a creation of the seventh 
century, it would be possible for a writer of the thir- 
teenth to have been ignorant of their origin, and that 
too at a time when tradition was universal? and 
every father made it a point to instil into his son 
the events and circumstances that happened in his 
own day ? This writer's testimony is sufficient, at 
all events, to show that they existed in the seventh 
century. 

Bishop Cormac, we have seen before, has recorded 
them as objects of antiquity in his own time ; and 
this being, at the latest, within the ninth century, 
they must have had existence before the seventh ; else 
they could not well be deemed ancient two centu- 
ries after. 

The Ulster Annals record the destruction of fifty- 
seven of them by an earthquake, A.D. 448 ; they 
must, therefore, have existed before that century 
also. But the Royal Irish Academy say no ; because 
that tradition connects a person called the Goban 
Saer, and " the historical notices relative to whom 

* Antiquities of Ireland, vol. ii. p. 129. 



THE ROUND TOWERS,. 37(3 

have been collected into Mr. Petrie's Essay with 

the erection of this (the Antrim Tower), as well as 
others in the north of Ireland*!" As every notice, 
therefore, respecting so important a character, must 
be eagerly sought after, I shall take leave to tran- 
scribe what the same high authority tells us of him, 
in the following words, viz. — 

" I have not learned the particular period at which 
he flourished, but tradition says, that he was superior 
to all his contemporaries in the art of building; even 
in that dark age when so little communication existed 
between countries not so remotely situated, his fame 
extended to distant lands. A British prince, whose 
possessions were very extensive, and who felt ambi- 
tious of erecting a splendid palace to be his regal resi- 
dence, hearing of the high attainments of the Goban 
Saer, in his sublime science, invited him to court, and 
by princely gifts, and magnificent promises, induced 
him to build a structure, the splendour of which ex- 
celled that of all the palaces in the world. But the 
consummate skill of the artist had nearly cost him his 
life, for the prince, struck with the matchless beauty 
of the palace, was determined that it should stand 
unrivalled on the earth, by putting the architect to 
death, who alone was capable of constructing such 
another, after the moment the building received the 
finishing touches of his skilful hand. 

" This celebrated individual had a son, who was 
grown up to man's estate ; and anxious that this only 
child should possess, in marriage, a young woman of 
sound sense and ready wit, lie cared little for the fac- 
titious distinctions of birth or fortune, if he found her 

* Dublin Penny Journal, July 20, 1833. 



376 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

rich in the gifts of heaven. Having killed a sheep, he 
sent the young man to sell the skin at the next market 
town, with this singular injunction, that he should 
bring home the skin and its price at his return. The 
lad was always accustomed to bow to his father's 
superior wisdom, and on this occasion did not stop to 
question the good sense of his commands, but bent 
his way to town. In these primitive times, it was 
not unusual to see persons of the highest rank en- 
gaged in menial employments, so the town-folk were 
less surprised to see the young Goban expose a 
sheep-skin for sale, than at the absurdity of the term, 
' the skin and the price of it.' He could find no chap- 
man, or rather chapwoman (to coin a term), for it was 
women engaged in domestic business that usually 
purchased such skins for the wool. A young woman 
at last accosted him, and upon hearing the terms of 
sale, after pondering a moment agreed to the bargain. 
She took him to her house, and having stripped off 
all the wool, returned him the bare skin, and the price 
for which the young man stipulated. Upon reach- 
ing home, he returned the slrin and its value to his 
father, who learning that a young woman became the 
purchaser, entertained so high an opinion of her 
talents, that in a few days she became the wife of his 
son, and sole mistress of Rath Goban. 

" Some time after this marriage, and towards the 
period to which we before referred, when the Goban 
Saer and his son were setting off, at the invitation of 
the British prince, to erect his superb palace, this 
young woman exhibited considerable abilities, and 
the keenness of her expressions, and the brilliancy of 
her wit, far outdid, on many occasions, the acumen 
of the Goban Saer himself ; she now cautioned him, 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 377 

when his old father, who did not, like modern archi- 
tects, Bianconi it along- Macadamized roads, got tired 
from the length of the journey, to shorten the road ; 
and secondly, not to sleep a third night in any house 
without securing the interest of a domestic female 
friend. The travellers pursued their way, and after 
some weary walking over flinty roads, and through 
intricate passages, the strength of the elder Goban 
yielded to the fatigue of the journey. The dutiful 
son would gladly shorten the road for the way-worn 
senior, but felt himself unequal to the task. On 
acquainting his father with the conjugal precept, the 
old man unravelled the mystery, by bidding him com- 
mence some strange legend of romance, whose delight- 
ful periods would beguile fatigue and pain into 
charmed attention. Irishmen, I believe, are the 
cleverest in Europe at ' throwing it over females in 
foreign places, and it is pretty likely that the younger 
Goban did not disobey the second precept of his be- 
loved wife. On the second night at their arrival at 
the king's court, he found in the person of a female 
of very high rank (some say she was the king's daugh- 
ter), a friend who gave her confiding heart to all the 
dear delights that love and this Irish experimentalist 
could bestow. As the building proceeded under the 
skilful superintendence of the elder Goban, the son 
acquaints him with the progress of his love, and the 
ardent attachment of the lady. The cautious old man 
bade him beware of one capable of such violent passion, 
and take care lest her jealousy or caprice might not 
be equally ungovernable, and display more fearful 
effects. To discover her temper, the father ordered 
him to sprinkle her face with water as he washed 
himself in the morning — that if she received the 



378 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

aspersion with a smile, her love was disinterested, and 
her temper mild ; but if she frowned darkly, her love 
was lust, and her anger formidable. The young man 
playfully sprinkled the crystal drops on the face of 
his lover — she smiled gently — and the young Goban 
rested calmly on that tender bosom, where true love 
and pitying mildness bore equal sway. 

" The wisdom of the Goban Saer and his sapient 
daughter-in-law was soon manifested ; for, as the 
building approached its completion, his lady-love com- 
municated to the young man the fearful intelligence, 
that the king was resolved, by putting them to death 
when the work was concluded, that they should erect 
no other such building, and, by that means, to enjoy the 
unrivalled fame of possessing the most splendid palace 
in the world. These tidings fell heavily on the ear 
of the Goban Saer, who saw the strong necessity of 
circumventing this base treachery with all his skill. 
In an interview with his majesty, he acquaints him 
that the building was being completed ; and that its 
beauty exceeded everything of the kind he had done 
before ; but that it could not be finished without a cer- 
tain instrument which he unfortunately left at home, 
and he requested his royal permission to return for 
it. The king would, by no means, consent to the 
Goban Saer's departure; but anxious to have the edi- 
fice completed, he was willing to send a trusty mes- 
senger into Ireland for that instrument upon which 
the finishing of the royal edifice depended. The 
other assured his majesty, that it was of so much 
importance that he would not entrust it into the 
hands of the greatest of his majesty's subjects. It 
was finally arranged that the king's eldest son should 
proceed to Rath Goban, and, upon producing his ere- 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 379 

dentials to the lady of the castle, receive the instru- 
ment of which she had the keeping, and which the 
Goban Saer named ' Cnr-an-aigh-a?i-cuim.' Upon his 
arrival in Ireland, the young prince proceeded to 
fulfil his errand ; but the knowing mistress of Rath 
Goban, judging from the tenor of the message, and 
the ambiguous expressions couched under the name 
of the pretended instrument, that her husband and 
father-in-law were the victims of some deep trea- 
chery, she bade him welcome, inquired closely after 
her absent friends, and told him he should have the 
object of his mission when he had refreshed himself 
after the fatigues of his long journey. Beguiled by 
the suavity of her manners and the wisdom of her 
words, the prince complied with her invitation to 
remain all night at Rath Goban. But in the midst 
of his security, the domestics, faithful to the call 
of their mistress, had him bound in chains, and led 
to the dungeon of the castle. Thus the wisdom of 
the Goban Saer, and the discrimination of his daugh- 
ter, completely baffled the wicked designs of the 
king, who received intimation that his son's life 
would surely atone for the blood of the architects. 
He dismissed them to their native country laden with 
splendid presents ; and, on their safe arrival at Rath 
Goban, the prince was restored to liberty *." 

Gentlemen of England, where is your knowledge of 
history ? which of your famed monarchs was it that 
was going to play this scurvy trick upon our Goban, 
and earn for himself the infamous notoriety of a 
second Laomedon, by defrauding this architect, who 
no doubt was a Hercules, of his stipulated salary ? 

* Dublin Penny Journal, June 10, 1833. 



380 THE IXOUND TOWERS, 

Ye shades of Alfred and of Ethelbert, I pause for a 
reply ! 

But this indignity, if offered to Goban, would be 
even greater than that offered by Laomedon to Her- 
cules ; for in the latter case the crime was only that 
of dishonesty — which is not uncommon in any age — 
superadded to a spice of impiety, in cheating a god ; 
but in the former case, over and above all these, 
would weigh a consideration which our people would 
never forgive — namely, a violation of the laws of 
gallantry, this same Goban " having been believed in 
this part of this country to have been aioomiH*!"' 
And yet the same vehicle that puts forth this 
trash has told us, in the preceding extract, that he 
was a father and a husband ! (I do not believe in 
hermaphrodites,) and, to crown the climax of absur- 
dity, gives us the following specimen of the heroism of 
his wife : viz. — 

" The Goban Saer having been barbarously mur- 
dered, together with his journeymen, by twelve high- 
waymen, the murderers proceeded to his house, and 
told the Goban's wife, with an air of triumph, that 
they had killed her husband. She appearing nowise 
concerned, asked them to assist her in drawing open 
the trunk of a tree, which the Goban had been cutting 
up into planks. They put in their hands for the 
purpose^ when, drawing out a wedge, she left them 
literally in a cleft stick, and taking up an axe, cut off 
all their heads at a blow)" !" 

But this is ludicrously trifling with the time of my 
readers. I am alive to the fact, and I most submis- 



1 Dublin Penny Journal, July 20, 1833. 

t Ibid. October b, 1833. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 381 

sively crave forgiveness, which I doubt not I shall 
receive, when I state that my sole object was to ex- 
pose the Jlimsiness of that subterfuge, by which the 
Roval Irish Academy, or rather their council ! had 
hoped that they could blindfold the public, as well 
as they had succeeded in sequestrating my prize ! 

I do not deny indeed but that there may have been 
in Ireland, at one time, such a person as the Goban 
Saer : but if ever he did belong thereto, it must have 
been at least sixteen hundred years before the epoch 
which the Academy sanction — and so sanction, be it 
observed, because that a weak-minded poor monk, 
when writing the biography of St. Abhan, and tor- 
turing his invention, in all quarters, for the purpose 
of conjuring up miracles to lay to his score, thought 
the similarity of sound between Abhan and Gobhan so 
inviting, that he must contrive an interview between 
the parties ; and so, with " one fell swoop," alias, dash 
of the pen, cutting off the centuries of separation, he 
treats himself and his pupils to the following bur- 
lesque : — 

'■' Quidam famossissimus in omni arte lignorum et 
lapidum erat in Hibernia nomine Gobbanus, cujus 
artis fama usque injinem sceculi erit in ea. Ipse jam 
postquam, aliis sanatis, in superflua artis suae mercede 
lumen oculorum amisit, et erat csecus. Hie vocatus 
est ad S. Abbanum et dixit ei : Volo sedificium in 
honorem Dei asdificare, et tu age illud. Et ille ait : 
Quomodo possum agere cum sim caecus ? dixit ei 
sanctus, Quamdiu illud operaberis lumen oculorum 
habebis, sed tibi postea non promitto. Et ita factum 
est, nam ille artifex apud sanctum Dei in lumine suo 
operatus est, et cum esset illud perfectum lumen ocu- 



382 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

lorum amisit * " — that is — in the true spirit of what 
my countrymen call a Sceal Feeneechtha, or Phoenician 
story, i. e., an entertaining lie, (a proof, by the way, 
that they claim no kindred with the Phoenicians, else 
they would not thus confirm the well-known epithet 
of Punica fides) ; however to put this sceal Feeneech- 
tha into English, it runs thus : — " Once upon a time, 
there lived in Erin, a man most celebrated for his uni- 
versal mastery over wood and stone ; and whose fame, 
accordingly, will live therein, as long as grass shall 
grow or purling streams flow in its enchanting scenery. 
This good man's name was Gobhan, who, wallow- 
ing in wealth from the meritorious exertions of his 
abilities, yet incapacitated from enjoying it by the 
deprivation of his sight, was summoned before St. 
Abhan, who had already healed the rest of the world 
by his miraculous gifts, and who thus addresses 
him : — ' I wish to build a house to the honour of God ; 
and set you about it. ' How can I,' says Gobhan, 
4 seeing that I am blind T ' O very well/ says Abhan, 
' I will settle that ; long as ever you are engaged in 
the business, you shall have the use of your eyes ; 
but I make no promises afterwards!' And verily it 
was so, for long as ever he did work with the saint, he 
had the use of his sight, but soon as ever the work 
was done, he relapsed into his former blindness! ' 

Well, you may laugh if you chuse, in future, at the 
simplicity of the monks ; but here is one for you, 
who, in the very extravagance of his simplicity, and 
that while bursting, almost, with risibility, himself, at 
the speciousness of his conceit, has contrived to 
bamboozle a jury of umpires, who pique themselves 

* Colgan. 



THE ROUXD TOWERS. 383 

upon their contempt for everything monkish, and who, 
actually, in any other case, had they the sworn evi- 
dence of a monk, would go counter thereto ; but here, 
where an old doting friar is drawing upon his inge- 
nuity, every syllable that escapes him is taken for 
gospel ! 

Now, I as readily believe, as they would fain per- 
suade me, that " long as Gobhan did work with Ab- 
han he had the use of his sight," and that " soon as 
ever the work was done, he relapsed into his former 
blindness." And why ? because the two men, living 
in different ages, never laid eyes upon each other at 
all, and thus were they both, morally and literally, blind 
to each other ! 

The Scythians, who were masters of this country 
at the Christian era, and for many centuries pre- 
ceding, had a sovereign contempt for everything like 
architecture. " They have no towns," says Herodo- 
tus, " no fortifications ; their habitations they always 
carry with them *. The principle which actuated 
them, in this indifference to houses, was precisely that 
which governed the Britons in a similar taste — they 
were a race of warriors, and dreaded the imputation 
of cowardice more than they did the inclemency of the 
weather. It is not without reason, therefore, that we 
find Hollingshed, who wrote his Chronicles in Queen 
Elizabeth's reign, complaining that " three things 
were altered for the worse in England — the multi- 
tude of chimneys lately erected, the great increase of 
lodgings, and the exchange of treen platters into 
pewter, and wooden spoons into silver and tin. 
Nothing but oak for building houses is now regarded : 
when houses were built with willow, then had we 

* Melpomene, ch. 46. 



384 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

oaken men ; but now our houses are come to be buili 
of oak, our men are not only become willow, but a 
great many altogether of straw*." 

St. Bernard^ also, in reference to the Irish, having 
mentioned that Malachy O'Morgan, archbishop of 
Armagh, was the first (of the Scythian race) who had 
erected a stone house in the island, introduces a 
native upbraiding him with it, in these terms : — 
" What wonderful work is this ? why this innovation 
in our country? we are Scots, and not Gauls, what 
necessity have we for such durable edifices?" 

St. Abhan, therefore, who belonged to the sixth 
century, at which time the Scythians had here abso- 
lute sway, never once dreamt of erecting a stone edi- 
fice, or of evoking from the grave the manes of 
Gobhan, who, if he ever existed, must have been a 
member of the former dynasty. 

Those pious fabrications which the biographers of 
early saints had concocted, with a view to magnify 
the reverence due to their subjects, remind me of 
one which was invented for the benefit (but in reality 
to the detriment) of St. Patrick, and which, even at 
the risk of appearing tedious, I must detail. 

" Whereas," — you perceive the record begins with 
all the formalities of office, — " in the year of the 
world 1525, Noah began to admonish the people of 
vengeance to come by a generall deluge for the 
wickednesse and detestable sinne of man, and con- 
tinued his admonition for 120 years, building an arke 
for the safeguard of himself and his family ; one 
Caesarea (say they), according unto others, Caisarea, a 

* Oppiduno vocant Britanni cum silvas impeditas vallo atque fossa 
munierunt. The Britons call a town an encumbered wood, fenced in with 
a rampart and a ditch.— Caesar's Comment, lib. 5. 






THE ROUND TOWERS. 385 

a niece of Noah, (when others seemed to neglect this 
warning,) rigging a navy, committed herself, with 
her adherents, to the seas, to seeke adventures and 
leave the plagues that were to befall. There arrived 
in Ireland with her three men, BUM, "Largria, and 
Fintan, and fifty women. Within forty days after 
her arrivall the universal flood came upon them, and 
those parts, as well as upon the rest of the world, and 
drowned them all ; in which perplexity of mind and 
imminent danger, beholding the waves overflowing 
all things before their eyes, Fintan is said to have 
been transformed into a salmon, and to have swoome 
all the time of the deluge about Ulster ; and after the 
fall of the water, recovering his former shape, to have 
lived longer than Adam, and to have delivered strange 
things to posterity, so that of him the common speech 
riseth, ' If I had lived Fintan's years I could say 
much.' " 

Well, " to make a long story short," this same 
Fintan, who was converted into a salmon, for the sole 
purpose of accounting for his appearance on the same 
theatre with St. Patrick, is introduced to the saint, 
when, after a very diverting episode upon his sub- 
marine adventures, a miracle, of course, is to be 
wrought, and, anon, we have the contemporary of 
Noah, and of Patrick, at once a salmon, a dolphin, and 
a man, renouncing his attachment to the waters and to 
the boat, and devoutly embracing Christianity ! ! ! 

The anachronism committed in the instance of the 
Goban Saer was precisely of the same character ! and 
the very name assigned him, which is that of a class, 
not of an individual, exposes the counterfeit ! 

Gobhan Saer means, the Sacred Poet, or the Free- 

2 c 



386 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

mason Sage, one of the Guabhres, or Cabiri, such as 
you have seen him represented upon the Tuath-de- 
danaan cross at Clonmacnoise. To this colony, there- 
fore, must he have belonged, and therefore the Towers, 
traditionally associated with his erection, must have been 
constructed anterior to the Scythian influx. 

But we are not left to such inferences to determine 
the point. A more substantial ally, the imperishable 
landmarks of history stand forward as my vouchers. 

To this hour the two localities — whereon the 
Tuath-de-danaans had fought their two decisive 
battles with the Fir-Bolgs, their immediate prede- 
cessors in the occupation of this island — one near 
Lough Mask, in the county Galway, and the other 
near Lough Arran, in the county Roscommon, are 
called by the name of Moy-tura, or more correctly _, in 
Irish, Moye-tureadh ! 

The meaning of this compound, beyond the pos- 
sibility of disputation, is The field of the Towers ! 
And when, in both those places, are still traced the 
ruins of such edifices, are we not inevitably forced to 
connect, as well their erection as the imposition of the 
name, with the fortunes or with the feelings of some 
side of the above combatants ? 

You will say, then, that the Fir-Bolgs were as likely 
to have originated the name, and built those struc- 
tures upon the site, in reliance upon their divinities, 
as that the Tuath-de-danaans should have been the 
authors in gratitude to theirs? 

Our only mode, therefore, is to consider the vestiges 
of their respective religions : and when we perceive 
that, in the isles of Aran, whither the Fir-Bolgs betook 
themselves after their first defeat, for the period in- 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 387 

tervening between those two battles, commemorated 
by the above name, there appears not a vestige of 
architectural masonry, approaching in character to a 
Columnar temple, while, on the contrary, they abound 
in specimens of Druidical veneration, is it not evident, 
that they, at all events, have no claim thereto? 

The worship, therefore, of the Fir-Bolgs differed 
altogether from that of the Tuath-de-danaans, and 
so they are excluded from those immortal memo- 
rials. Indeed the avidity with which they hailed the 
approach of a new conqueror, and tendered him their 
assistance for the reduction of the island, arose not 
so much from any fondly-cherished hope of their 
being themselves restored to the throne they had 
lost, or even allowed therein a participation, as from 
an illiberal aversion to the emblematic ritual of their 
temple-serving superiors, which their ignorant pre- 
judices could not allow them to appreciate ! 

We are warranted, then, I presume, in assigning 
solely to the Tuath-de-danaans the affixing of the 
name Moy-tureadh to those two scenes of their success. 
And did there even a doubt remain on the mind of the 
most incredulous, as to the accuracy of the inference, 
or the correctness of that reasoning, which would 
identify this people with the erections in general of 
those rotundities, it will hide its diminished head, 
and vanish with self-abasement, when I bring forward 
the testimony of Amergin, brother to Heremon and 
Heber, — the immediate victors of this religious order, 
— in the following graphic and pictorial treasure, as 
still religiously preserved in the Book of Leccan, viz. 

" Aonoch righ Teambrach 
Teamor Tut Tualarh 
Tuath Mac Miledh 
Miledh Long Libearne."' 

2 c 2 



388 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

That is, 

" Noble is the king of Teamor, 
Teamor the Tuathan Tower, 
Tuaths were the sons of Miledh, 
Miledh of the Libearn vessels." 

Here, then, — a circumstance which I cannot imagine 
how it could have escaped all before me ! — we have this 
disputed question at length settled, and incontro- 
vertibly adjudicated by the very head of that body, 
which Montmorency had assured us, never alluded to 
those edifices as a subject of national boast — I mean 
the Bards. For, whether we admit this Amergin to 
have been the person above described *, the actual 
contemporary and successor of the Tuatha-de-da- 
naans, or as the other, of that name, who belongs to the 
Christian age, and the time of St. Patrick, the sup- 
position is equally valid, to prove the existence of 
those structures anterior to their respective eras ! and 
the ascription, in either case, remains unshaken, and 
irrefragable, which, in the word Tuathan Tower, unites 
the Tower erectors with the colony of the Tuatha ! 

* Of whom O'Flaherty gives this character from an Irish poem, writ 
■by one G. Comdeus O' Cormaic, which he thus translates into Latin. 

Primus Amerginus genu candidus anthor Jem 
Historicus, judex lege, poeta, sophus. 
That is, 

Fair-limbed Amergin, venerable sage, 
First graced Ierne's old historic page ; 
Judge of the laws, for justice high approved, 
And loving wisdom by the muse beloved. 
And he quotes this hemistich as another fragment of his poetry, 
Eagna la heagluis aidir 
Agus feabtha la flaithibh. 



That is, 



Let those, who o'er the sacred rites preside, 
Take wisdom for their guardian and their guide : 
Let those, whose power the multitude obey, 
Support by conduct their imperial sway. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 389 

My opponents may now demolish, if they can, all 
my foregoing deductions, as speedily as they please, — 
nay, did the destructiveness of fire or other untoward 
accident, deprive me of the deductions of my pre- 
ceding labours, to this one stanza would I cling, as the 
palladium of my truth ; to this landmark would I 
adhere as my " ne plus ultra " against error, in its 
encroachments upon history * ! 

In the whole catalogue of Irish deposits, there 
exists not one of more intrinsic value to the lover of 
antiquities, so far as the right settlement of history is 
concerned, than what those four lines present. For, 
in the first place, we learn that the celebrity of 
Teamorf arose not from any gorgeous suit of palaces 
of a castellated outline. Its renown consisted in 
being the central convention for religious celebration 
to all the distant provincials once in every year; who, 
after attending the games in the adjoining district of 
Tailtine, now Telltown, adjourned, for legislative 
deliberations, to the Hill of Tarah, where they pro- 
pounded their plans, not within the confined enclo- 
sures of any measured dome, but under the open 
canopy of the expanded firmament. 

Teamor, then, was not a Palace at all, but one of 
the " Round Towers," or Budhist Temples, belonging 
to the Tuath-de-danaans ; and this is further proved 
by the result of researches, made to explore the 
foundation of an edifice, confirmatory of a regal man- 
sion, having all ended in the most confuting disap- 

* The above stanza, I should observe, belongs to that species of poetry 
called in Irish con a-clon, wherein the final word of each line is the 
initial one of the following. 

f Or " Tarah," says the Dinn Seanchas, compiled by Amergen 
Mac Amalgaid, in the year 544, " was so called from its celebrity for 
melody." 



390 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

pointment — no vestiges could be found save those of 
the Round Tower ! 

The importance which attaches to the Tailtine 
games above noticed, makes it necessary that I should 
bestow upon them something more than a cursory 
glance. Let me, therefore, first state what other writers 
have said respecting them. 

" We attribute," says Abbe Mac Geoghegan, " to 
Lugha Lamh Fada, one of their ancient kings, the 
institution of military exercises at Tailton in Meath ; 
those exercises consisted in wrestling, the combats 
of gladiators, tournaments, races on foot and on 
horseback, as we have seen them instituted at Rome 
a long time after by Romulus, in honour of Mars, 
which were called ' Equitia.' These games at Tail- 
ton, which Gratianus Lucius and O'Flaherty call 
' ludi Taltini,' were celebrated every year, during 
thirty days, that is, fifteen days before, and fifteen 
days after, the first of our month of August. On that 
account, the first of August has been, and is still 
called in Ireland, ' Lah Lugh-Nasa,' which signifies a 
day in memory of Lugha. These olympiads always 
continued amongst the Milesians until the arrival of 
the English. We discover to this day some vestiges 
of them, without any other change than that of time 
and place. Wrestling, which we call in France ' le 
tour du Breton,' the exercises of gladiators and races 
on foot, are still on festival days their common diver- 
sion, in various districts of Ireland, and the conquerors 
generally receive a prize." 

" Tailtea?i," says Seward, " a place in the county 
of Meath, where the Druids sacrificed in honour of 
the sun and moon, and heaven and earth, on the first 
of August, being the fifth revolution of the moon 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 391 

from the vernal equinox. At this time the states 
assembled, and young people were given in marriage, 
according to the custom of the eastern nations. Games 
were also instituted, resembling the Olympic games 
of the Greeks, and held fifteen days before and fifteen 
days after the first of August. This festival was fre- 
quently denominated Lughaid Naoislean, or the 
Matrimonial Assembly." 

" This chapter," says Vallancey, " might have 
been lengthened many pages, with the description and 
etymology of the various ornaments of female dress, 
but enough has been said to convince the reader, 
that the ancient Irish brought with them the Asiatic 
dress and ornaments of their ancestors, for they could 
not have borrowed these names of Spaniards, Britons, 
Danes, or Norwegians. 

" Thus dressed and ornamented, the youthful fe- 
males of Ireland appeared at Tailetan, or the mys- 
teries of the sun, on the first day of August in each 
year, when the ceremony of the marriage of the sun 
and moon took place, and the females were exposed 
to enamour the swains. The day still retains the 
name of Luc-nasa, or the Anniversary of the Sun. 
And the name of the month of August, in Sanscrit, 
is Lukie, whom they make the wife of Veeshnu, the 
preserver and goddess of plenty. So the Irish poets 
have made this festival, named Lucaid-lamh-fada, i. e., 
the Festival of Love, the consecration of hands, to 
be the feast of Luigh-lamh-fada, or Luigh-longumans, 
to whom they have given Tailte for wife, who, after 
his death, was married to Duach." 

" The Taltenean sports," says Sir James Ware, 
" have been much celebrated by the Irish historians. 
They were a sort of warlike exercises, something 
resembling the Olympic Games, consisting of racing 



392 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

tilts, tournaments, or something like them, and other 
exercises. They were held every year at Talten, a 
mountain in Meath, for fifteen days before, and fifteen 
days after, the first of August. Their first institu- 
tion is ascribed to Lugaid-lam-fadhe, the twelfth 
King of Ireland, who began his reign a.m. 2764, in 
gratitude to the memory of Tailte, the daughter of 
Magh Mor, a prince of some part of Spain, who hav- 
ing been married to Eochaid, King of Ireland, took 
this Lugaidh under her protection, and had the care 
of his education in his minority. From this lady 
both the sports and the place where they were cele- 
brated took their names. From King Lugaidh the 
first of August was called Lugnasa, or the memory of 
Lugaidh, nasa signifying memory in Irish." 

The truth is, that those games were called Tail- 
tine (whence the English Tilts), and the place Tail- 
ton, from Tailte, which, in our language, signifies a 
wife ; — and the sports, there exhibited, made but a 
representation of the victory which Budha gained 
over Mara, the great Tempter, who had attacked him 
on the day of his attaining to perfection, with an 
innumerable host of demons. The conflict is said to 
have lasted for fifteen days, at the end of which Budha 
reduced them to submission, and to the acknowledg- 
ment of his pretensions as the Son of God. 

The battle-scenes, therefore, with which the Tuath-de- 
danaan crosses and obelisks are decorated, bear refer- 
ence, all of them, to this religious achievement : and to 
this hour you will find those identical games celebrated 
in various parts of the east, and for the same number 
of days ! In Egypt, also, there was a place called 
Tailtal *, and named from the same cause. Nay, the 

* Once occupied by a celebrated queen ! — Asiatic Researches. 



\ 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 393 

name of the Eleusinian mysteries was Tailtine ! but 
this the Greeks not comprehending, they bent it, as 
usual, to some conformity to their own language, 
and made Teletai of it ! and then they were at no loss 
in making a reason for it in like manner, viz., that 
no one could be finished until initiated therein ! 

But it is not alone as assigning those edifices to 
their real proprietors that this "stanza" is of value; but 
as giving us an insight into that mysterious personage 
whom our modern chroniclers would fain represent as 
the father of Heber and Heremon. A greater error, 
whether voluntary or accidental, was never incurred. 
Heber and Heremon were the sons of Gallamh, and 
invaded this island at the head of a Scythian colony * 
distinct in all respects, save that of language f, from 
their Tuathan predecessors. 

These predecessors were headed by three brothers, 
Brien, Iuchordba, and Iuchor, the sons of King 
Miledh, a Fo-morian, by a queen of the Tuath-de-da- 
naan race, agreeably to this record in the book of 
Leccan : viz. — 

" D'Hine fine Fo-mora dosomh de shaorbh a athor, 
agus do Tuathabk Dadanann a mhathar" — that is, the 
father was of the race of the Fo-morians, and the 
mother a Tuath-de-danaan. 

Again, in the Seabright Collection, this genealogy 
is prosecuted farther, and from it, General Vallancey 
translates some lines, which are by no means irrele- 
vant, as follows, viz. : — " Cuill, Ceacht, and Grian, 

* Heremon was the first of the Scots who held the dominion over all 
Ireland. — Psalter of Narran. 

■V For, in the first place, the general tradition of the old Irish handed 
down to us by all our historians and other writers, imports that when 
the Scots arrived in Ireland, they spoke the same language with that of 
the Tuath-de-danaans. — Preface to O'Brien's Irish Dictionary. 



394 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

were the children of little Touraine — and their de- 
scendants, Uar, Jurca, Jurcatha ; and, from Uar was 
descended Brian, who was named Touran ; and many 
others not here enumerated." 

But the history of those events having been de- 
stroyed by time, the degenerate Pheeleas, wishing to 
natter the vanity of the existing powers, did not hesi- 
tate to ascribe to the Scythian, or modern Irish, fol- 
lowers of Heber and Heremon, those brilliant fea- 
tures of primeval immortality which appertained 
exclusively to the Irish of another day — the Hyper- 
borean or Iranian Irish ! 

The Tuath-de-danaans having been proved the 
authors of the Round Towers, my ambition in the inves- 
tigation is alreadv attained. But since we are told, 
that this people had claimed possession of the island 
as inheritors of an antecedent and pre-occupying 
eastern colony, it may be worth while to inquire 
whether we can discover any traces to connect 
those predecessors with any of these edifices. With- 
out bestowing upon it, however, more considera- 
tion than what the exigency demands, I will briefly 
observe, that we are likely to find such in the history 
of the Fo-mo?'aice, who are represented in our chro- 
nicles, by the party who had ejected them, under the 
obnoxious character of monsters and giants * / 

It is high time to give up those abuses in the im- 
port of words. Fo-moraice means literally, the raa- 

* The Egyptian epithets are not very dissimilar, — " Besides these first 
inhabitants of Sancha-dwipa, who are described by the mythologists, 
as elephants, demons, and stiakes, we find a race called Shand-ha-yana. 
who are the real Troglodites : they were the descendants of Abri, 
before named, whose history, being closely connected with that of the 
Sacred Isles in the West, deserves peculiar attention." — Asiatic Re- 
searches. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 395 

riners of Fo, that is, of Budh : and their religion being 
thus identified with that of the Tuath-de-danaans, 
what could be more natural than, that they should 
have erected temples of the same shape with theirs ? 

This deduction will appear the more credible 
from the unanimity of all our historians, on the sub- 
ject of this people having been perfect masters of 
masonry, — as well as from the universally credited 
report in the days of Cambrensis, of some of the 
Towers being then visible beneath the inundation of 
Lough Neagh*. 

I confess I am one of those persons who give faith 
to this tradition ; for even my experience of the vicis- 
situdes of all things earthly has enabled me to say, 
in the words of the philosophic poet, that, 

" Where once was solid land seas have I seen, 
And solid land where once deep seas have been, 
Shells far from seas, like quarries in the ground, 
As anchors have in mountain tops been found. 
Torrents have made a valley of a plain, 
High hills by floods transported to the main, 
Deep standing lakes sucked dry by thirsty sand, 
And on late thirsty earth now lakes do stand/' 

* Nearly similar things, we find, have occurred in the East. " The 
natives of the place (Mavalepuran, in India) declared to the writer of this 
account, that the more aged people among them remembered to have 
seen the tops of several pagodas far out in the sea ; a statement which 
was verified by the appearance of one on the brink of the sea, already 
nearly swallowed up by that element." — Asiatic Researches. 



396 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

Having promised early in this volume to identify 
our island with the Insula Hyperboreorum of anti- 
quity, I shall, without further tarrying, produce the 
extract referre dto, from Diodorus ; and, lest I may be 
suspected of adapting it to my own peculiar views, 
it shall appear minutely in Mr. Booth's transla- 
tion — viz., 

" Amongst them that have written old stories much 
like fables, Hecatseus and some others say, that there 
is an island in the ocean, over against Gaul, as big 
as Sicily, under the arctic pole, where the Hyper- 
boreans inhabit, so called because they lie beyond 
the breezes of the north wind. That the soil here 
is very rich and very fruitful, and the climate tempe- 
rate, insomuch as there are two crops in the year. 

" They say that Latona was born here, and there- 
fore that they worship Apollo above all other gods ; 
and because they are daily singing songs in praise of 
this god, and ascribing to him the highest honours, 
they say that these inhabitants demean themselves as 
if they were Apollo's priests, who has here a stately 
grove and renowned temple of round form, beautified 
with many rich gifts. That there is a city like- 
wise consecrated to this god, whose citizens are most 
of them harpers, who, playing on the harp, chant 
sacred hymns to Apollo in the temple, setting forth 



X 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 397 

his glorious acts. The Hyperboreans use their own 
natural language, but, of long and ancient time, have 
had a special kindness for the Grecians ; and more 
especially for the Athenians, and them of Delos ; and 
that some of the Grecians passed over to the Hyper- 
boreans, and left behind them divers presents *, in- 
scribed with Greek characters ; and that Abaris 
formerly travelled thence into Greece, and renewed 
the ancient league of friendship with the Delians. 

" They say, moreover, that the moon in this island 
seems as if it were near to the earth, and represents, 
on the face of it, excrescences, like spots on the earth ; 
and that Apollo, once in nineteen years, comes into 
the island ; in which space of time the stars perform 
their courses, and return to the same point; and 
therefore the Greeks call the revolution of nineteen 
years, the Great Year. At this time of his appearance 
they say that he plays upon the harp, and sings and 
dances all the night, from the vernal equinox "f to the 
rising of the Pleiades];, solacing himself with the praises 
of his own successful adventures. The sovereignty of 
this city, and the care of the temple, they say, belong 
to the Boreades, the posterity of Boreas, who hold the 
principality by descent, in the direct line from that 
ancestor." 

When copying this narrative from the writings of 
Hecataeus, it is evident that Diodorus did not believe 
one single syllable it contained. He looked upon it 
as a romance : — and so far was he from identifying it 
with any actual locality, that he threw over the whole 
an air of burlesque. We are, therefore, not at all 
obliged for the services he has rendered — yet shall we 

* AvaOtjfjbara, — things dedicated to the gods. 
f In March. J In September. 



398 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

make his labours subservient to the elucidation oi 
truth. Little did he dream that Ireland, — which he, 
by and by, expressly mentions by the name of Irin, 
and which he calumniates as cannibal,— was one and 
the same with that isle of which he read such enco- 
miums in the writings of former antiquaries ; and, 
most unquestionably, it did require no small portion 
of research to reconcile the contradiction' which the 
outline involves, and which is now further enhanced 
by his scepticism. 

Unable to solve this difficulty, Mr. Dalton, — wishing 
to retain, by all means, the Hyperborean isle, — which, 
indeed, he could not well discard — yet not bring it in 
collision with the Iranian libel, — does not hesitate to 
throw, at once, overboard, into the depth of the Atlantic, 
the island of Irin, (alias Ireland,) and affirm, that it 
never was the place which the historian had specified. 
" It is not quite certain," says he, " what place Dio- 
dorus means by Iris * ; from the turn of the expression 
it would rather appear to be a part of Britain— per- 
haps the Erne, for which Mr. James M'Pherson 
contends in another place, — while the island which 
Diodorus does mention in the remarkable pages cited 
above, and which so completely agrees with Ireland, 
is never called Iris by him, nor does the name occur 
again in all his work, nor is it by any other author 
applied to Ireland "}"." 

Mind, now, reader, how easily I reconcile the con- 
flicting fact of Diodorus's incredulity with his positive 
defamation. 

At the period when he flourished as an accredited 
historian, the occupancy of Ireland had passed into new 

* See page 120. 
t Trans. Roy. Ir. Acad., vol. xvi. p. i6G. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 399 

hands. The Scythians were the persons then pos- 
sessed of the soil ; and they being a warlike tribe, 
averse to letters, to religion, and to refinement*, — but 
overwhelming in numbers, — obliterated every vestige 
of that primeval renown, in which the island had once 
gloried, and which afforded theme and material, to the 
learned of all countries, for eulogy and praise. 

Hecatasus was one of those, who depicted in glowing 
colours the primitive splendour and the ethereal hap- 
piness of Ireland's first inhabitants. He belonged to 
an age which was well called antiquarian, even in the 
day in which Diodorus wrote, viz., b. c. 44 ; and 
when, therefore, this latter, looking over the pages of 
his venerable predecessor, saw them so replete with 
incidents, — at variance with our condition in his own 
degenerate day, — he did not only not dream of con- 
sidering Ireland as the place described, but looked 
upon the whole story as the fiction of a dotard. 

Let us, however, despite of Diodorus, establish the 
veracity of the antiquarian Hecatseus. Then behold 
the situation of this island, just opposite to France — 
in size as large as Sicily — at once corresponding to 
the locality and size of Ireland, and subversive of the 
claims of those who would fain make England, Angle- 
sea, or one of the Hebrides, the island specified. 

Consider further the prolificacy of its soil, and 
with that compare what the old poet has affirmed, — 

* Procopius calls them avw«/ xui apiXiryim, that is, heedless and indif- 
ferent to all culture. 

Bishop Cormac also says, that he " cannot sufficiently express his 
astonishment at the indifference which the Scottish nation evinced in 
his day to literature." 

Straho calls them, Ay^m <riXta>s uvfy&mov, while Mac Pherson asserts of 
their brethren, that " nothing is more certain than that the British Scots 
were an illiterate people, and involved in barbarism, even after the 
Patriarch's mission to the Scots of Ireland." 



400 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



and what we know to be true, — of our own country, 
viz. : — 

" Illic bis niveum tondetur vellus in anno 
Bisque die referunt ubera tenta greges." 

Then bring its propinquity to the " arctic pole," and 
the high northern latitude which Strabo * and other 
ancients have assigned to Ireland, into juxtaposition 
with " Hyperborean," the name given to its inhabitants 
from the very circumstance of their lying so far to the 
north, — and the identity of the isle with that in which 
each true Irishman exults is infallibly complete, when 
I quote from Marcianus Heracleotes — who wrote in 
the third century, and who, as he himself avows, only 
drew up a compendium from the voluminous works of 
Artemidorus, who flourished in the hundred and sixty- 
ninth Olympiad, or 104 years before Christ — the follow- 
ing description of this sacred island, viz.: " luvernia, 
a British isle, is bounded on the north (ad Boream) by 
the ocean called the Hyperborean ; but on the east by 
the ocean which is called the Hibernian ; on the south 
by the Virginian ocean. It has sixteen nations and 
eleven illustrious cities, fifteen remarkable rivers, five 
remarkable promontories, and six remarkable islands." 

Here the sea, encompassing Ireland on the north, 
is called the Hyperborean Ocean j" ; and when we are 
told that the priests officiating at the round temples of 

* In fact this writer had no other reason for this mistake which he 
has committed, in describing it as " scarce habitable for cold,'" — than his 
knowledge of its Hyperborean situation. " The most remote navigation 
northward from the Celtic coast, in our days,'' says he, " is said to be 
into Ireland (Ierne), which being situated beyond Britain, is scarce 
habitable for cold, so that what lies beyond that island is thought to be 
not at all habitable."— Geog. lib. 2, ex vers. Gul. Xylandri. 

•j- Orpheus, also, calls the sea dividing the north of Scotland from 
Ireland, " Mare Cronium, idem quod mare saturninum et oceanus sep- 
tentrionalis." — Vallancey. 



HE ROUND TOWERS; 401 

Apollo were called Boreades, we can readily under- 
stand the origin of the name, as derived from Boreas y 
the deity who presided over the north-east wind, to 
which they offered their vows, — just as we find the 
emperor Augustus erecting a temple at Rome, many 
centuries after, to the wind called Circius. 

To this deification of the energies of nature, which, 
as before affirmed, was but part and parcel of that, 
form of worship called Sabaism, the author of the 
Book of Enoch has alluded in the following mys- 
terious episode : — 

" Then another angel, who proceeded with me, 
spoke to me ; and shewed me the first and last secrets 
in heaven above, and in the depths of the earth : in 
the extremities of heaven, and in the foundations of 
it, and in the receptacle of the winds. He shewed 
me how their Spirits were divided ; how they were 
balanced ; and how both the springs and the winds 
were numbered according to the force of their Spirit. 
He shelved me the power of the moon's light, that its 
power is a just one ; as well as the divisions of the 
stars, according to their respective names ; that every 
division is divided ; that the lightning flashes ; that 
their Host immediately obey ; and that a cessation 
takes places during thunder, in the continuance of its 
sound. Nor are the thunder and the lightning sepa- 
rated ; neither do both of them move with one Spirit ; 
yet are they not separated. For when the lightning 
lightens, the thunder sounds, and the Spirit, at a 
proper period, pauses, making an equal division be- 
tween them ; for the receptacle of their times is what 
sand is. Each of them at a proper season is re- 
strained with a bridle, and turned by the power of 

2 D 



402 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

the Spirit; which thus propels them according to the 
spacious extent of the earth." 

Yet beautiful as is the above, it is not much more 
so than an almost inspired little poem, which appeared 
some time ago, in one of the public prints, as ema= 
nating from the pen of an American lady, named 
Goold, personifying this element, viz. — 

" We come ! we come ! and ye feel our might, 
As we're hastening on in our boundless flight ; 
And over the mountains and over the deep, 
Our broad invisible pinions sweep. 
Like the Spirit of Liberty, wild and free ! 
And ye look on our works, and own 'tis we ; 
Ye call us the winds ; but can ye tell 
Whither we go, or where we dwell ? 

Ye mark as we vary our forms of power, 

And fell the forest or fan the flower, 

When the hare-bell moves, and the rush is bent, 

When the tower 's o'erthrown and the oak is rent, 

As we waft the bark o'er the slumbering wave, 

Or hurry its crew to a watery grave : 

And ye say it is we ! but can ye trace 

The wandering winds to their secret place ? 

And whether our breath be loud and high, 
Or come in a soft and balmy sigh, 
Our threat'nings fill the soul with fear, 
As our gentle whisperings woo the ear 
With music aerial, still 'tis we, 
And ye list, and ye look ; but what do ye see ? 
Can ye hush one sound of our voice to peace, 
Or waken one note when our numbers cease ? 

Our dwelling is in th' Almighty's hand, 
We come and we go at his command ; 
Though joy or sorrow may mark our track, 
His will is our guide, and we look not back ; 
And if, in our wrath, ye would turn us away, 
Or win us in gentlest air to play, 
Then lift up your hearts to Him who binds, 
Or frees, as he will, the obedient winds P 



l'HK ROUND TOWERS, 403 

And now, as to those '-' temples ,; themselves, " of 
round form," sacred to Apollo, where will Borlasse 
in his championship for England, or Rowland in his 
claims for the island of Anglesea, or Toland and 
Carte for the little Hebrides isles, find a single ves- 
tige -of a rotund edifice of antiquated consecration, ap- 
pertaining to the age which Hecatseus described ? — 
whereas, in Ireland, of the two hundred and upwards, 
with which its surface was, at one time, adorned, we 
have not only vestiges of each and all to this day ; 
but, out of the sixty that survive, — after an interval of 
more than three thousand years standing, — about 
twenty still display their Grynean devotion and their 
Hyperborean tranquillity, and are likely so to do for 
three thousand years more, should this world, or our 
portion of it, but last so long! 

To give soul to the solemnization of this religious 
pomp, the Irish have ever cultivated the mysteries of 
music. The harp more particularly had enlisted the 
energies of their devotional regard, and their eminence 
in its management made Hecatseus well observe, that 
" the inhabitants were almost exclusively harpers." 
This was a very suitable accompaniment to their wor- 
ship of Apollo, who was himself the reputed inventor 
of this instrument ; and accordingly we find that, even 
in the twelfth century, broken down and obliterated 
as every vestige of the real Irish then was, by the un- 
genial amalgamation of the Scythian and Danish 
intruders, the harp was still preserved as the last 
remnant of their glory ; while the elegance of their 
compositions and performance upon it extorted this 
reluctant acknowledgment from the prejudiced Cam- 
brensis : — 

"The attention," says he, " of this people to 

2 d 2 






404 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

musical instruments, I find worthy of commendation ; 
their skill in which is, beyond comparison, superior to 
that of any nation I have seen. For in these the 
modulation is not slow and solemn, as in the instru- 
ments of Britain, to which we are accustomed, but the 
sounds are rapid and precipitate, yet, at the same 
time, sweet and pleasing. It is wonderful how, in 
such precipitate rapidity of the fingers, the musical 
proportions are observed, and, by their art, faultless 
throughout. 

" In the midst of their complicated modulations and 
most intricate arrangement of notes, by a rapidity so 
sweet, a regularity so irregular, a concord so discord- 
ant, the melody is rendered harmonious and perfect, 
whether the chords of the diatesseron or diapente 
are struck together. Yet they always begin in a soft 
mood, and end in the same, that all may be perfected 
in the sweetness of delicious sounds. They enter on, 
and again leave, their modulations with so much 
subtlety, and the tricklings of the small notes sport 
with so much freedom under the deep note of the 
bass ; they delight with so much delicacy, and soothe 
so softly, that the excellency of their art seems to be 
in concealing it *." 

Clarsech and Cruit were both names which the 
Irish gave their harp, from the musical board and the 
warbling of the strings respectively. But the fa- 
vourite designation was that of Orphean, an evident 
derivation from Orpheus, the divine musician of the 
ancients, who is said to have stayed the course of 
rivers, and lulled the listening woods, — to have moved 
the stones into prescribed positions, and tamed the 
savage propensities of man — all by the instrumen- 
tality of his speaking lyre ! 

* Gerald. Cambr., Hist, i, cap. 1 ( J. 






THE ROUND TOWERS. 405 

" As regards Orpheus himself," says the learned 
Barker, " he is stated, by some ancient authorities, 
to have abstained from eating of flesh, and to have 
had an abhorrence of eggs, considered as food, from 
a persuasion that the egg was the principle of all 
being. Many other accounts are given of him, 
which would seem to assimilate his character to that 
of the ancient priests of India, or Brachmani. The 
ancients, however, unable to discover any mode by 
which he could have obtained his knowledge from any 
other source, pretended that he had visited Egypt, 
and had there been initiated in the mysteries of Isis 
and Osiris. This appears, however, to be a supposition 
purely gratuitous, on the part of the ancient writers, 
since a careful examination of the subject leads 
directly to the belief, that Orpheus was of Indian 
origin ; that he was a member of one of those Sacer- 
dotal Colonies, which professed the religion of Buddha ; 
and who being driven from their home, in the 
northern parts of India, and in the plains of Tartary, 
by the power of the rival sect of Brahma, moved gra- 
dually onwards to the west, dispensing, in their pro- 
gress, the benefits of civilization and the mysterious 
tenets of their "peculiar faith.''' 

We know little or nothing at this remote day of 
the ancient music of the Bardic order; that it was 
eminent, however, and transcendently superior to that 
of all other countries, is evident from the fact of its 
having; maintained its character when all our other 
attributes had notoriously vanished. Caradoc admits 
that his countrymen, the Welsh, borrowed all their 
instruments, tunes, airs, and measures, from our 
favoured island. Carr additionally says, that " al- 
though the Welsh have been for ages celebrated for 



40G 



THE ROUND TOWERS, 



the boldness and sweetness of their music, vet it 
appears that they were much indebted to the superior 
musical talents of their neighbours, the Irish." Sel- 
den- asserts, " that the Welsh music, for the most 
part, came out of Ireland with Gruffydh ap Tenan, 
Prince of North Wales, who was cotemporary with 
King Stephen." I know not whether our brethren of 
Scotland will be so ready to acknowledge the loan. 
But if any one will compare the spirit of their music, 
with that which pervades the melodies of our country, 
the identity will be as obvious, as the inference is irre- 
sistible. 

Fuller, in his account of the Crusade, conducted 
by Godfrey of Boulogne, says, " Yea, we might well 
think that all the concerts of Christendom in this war 
would have made no music, if the Irish harp had been 
wanting." 

And this is the instrument which Ledwich asserts 
we borrowed from the Ostmen ! — Insolent presumption ! 
— Neither Ostman or Dane ever laid eyes upon such, 
until they saw it in the sunny valleys of the Emerald 
Island. And had they the shadow of a claim either 
to it or to the " Round Towers," — to which its services 
were consecrated, — Cambrensis could not fail ascer- 
taining the fact from any of the stragglers of those 
uncouth marauders, who — having survived the car- 
nage inflicted upon their army, in the plains of Clon- 
tarf, under the retributive auspices of the immortal 
Brien- — were allowed to cultivate their mercantile 
avocations in the various maritime cities, where they 
would naturally be proud to perpetuate every iota of 
demonstrative civilization which they could pretend 
to have imported. Alas ! they imparted none, but 
exported a great deal ; and, what is more to be 
lamented, annihilated its evidences ! 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 407 

But it is not alone of the 'property of this national 
organ that the moderns would deprive us, but the 
very existence of the instrument they affirm to be of 
recent date ! Why, Sir, it is as old as the hills. 
Open the fourth chapter of the book of Genesis, and 
you will find it there recorded, that " Jubal was the 
father of all such as handle the harp and organ." 

And now to the empirics of the " Fine Arts *" and 
the deniers of their antiquity, I shall quote the next 
verse, viz., " Zillah, she also bare a son, Tubal-Cain, 
an instructor of everv artificer in brass and iront." 
And in Job xxviii. 2, it is said, that " iron is taken 
out of the earth, and brass is molten out of the 
stone." 

" In the ?iorth of Europe," says Herodotus, " there 
appears to be by far the greatest abundance of gold : 
where it is found I cannot say, except that the Arimas- 
pians, a race of men having only one eye, are said to 
purloin it from the griffins];. I do not, however, be- 
lieve that there exists any race of men born with only 
one eye !" 

Had this esteemed author known the allegorical 
import of the word Arimaspians, (from arima, one, 
and spia, an eye,) such as it has been explained at 
page 86, he would not have committed himself by the 
observation with which the above extract has termi- 

* A series of articles written under this head, in the columns of the 
Dublin Penny Journal, by Mr. Pebrie, antiquarian high-priest to the 
Royal Irish Academy ! 

f This Tubal-Cain was evidently the person from whom the Greeks 
manufactured their mythological Vul-can. 

% " The griffin," says Shaw, copying Ctesias, " is a quadruped of 
India, having the claws of a lion, and wings upon his back. His fore 
parts are red, his wings white, his neck blue, his head and his beak 
resemble those of the eagle : he makes his nest among the mountains, 
and haunts the deserts, where he conceals his gold." 



408 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

nated. No doubt, he thought it extremely philoso- 
phical, because it is sceptical! but let us see if 
another instance of his scepticism will redound more 
to his philosophy : — li I cannot help laughing," says 
he elsewhere, " at those who pretend that the ocean 
flows round our continent : no proof can be given of 

it I believe that Homer had taken, what he 

believes about the ocean, from a work of antiquity, 
but it was without comprehending anything of the 
matter, repeating what he had read, without well 
understanding what he had read * ! " 

Now, without disputing with Siberia the honour 
of possessing all this ancient gold, I will take the 
liberty of inserting an extract from one of Mr. Ha- 
milton's letters on the Antrim coast, which will show, 
at all events, the antiquity of our mining. 

" About the year 1770," says he, " the miners, in 
pushing forward an adit toward the bed of coal, at an 
unexplored part of the Ballycastle cliff, unexpect- 
edly broke through the rock into a narrow passage, 
so much contracted and choked up with various 
drippings and deposits on its sides and bottom, as 
rendered it impossible for any of the workmen to force 
through, that they might examine it farther. Two 
lads were, therefore, made to creep in with candles, 
for the purpose of exploring this subterranean avenue. 
They accordingly pressed forward for a considerable 
time, with much labour and difficulty, and at length 
entered into an extensive labyrinth, branching off into 
numerous apartments, in the mazes and windings of 

* " The ignorance of the European Greeks in geography was extreme 
in all respects during many ages. They do not even appear to have 
known the discoveries made in more ancient voyages, which were not 
absolutely unknown to Homer." — Mr. Gouget, Origin of Arts and 
Sciences, torn. 7. b. 3. 



HIE ROUND TOWERS. 409 

which they were completely bewildered and lost. 
After various vain attempts to return, their lights were 
extinguished, their voices became hoarse, and ex- 
hausted with frequent shouting ; and, at length, 
wearied and spiritless, they sat down together, in 
utter despair of an escape from this miserable dun- 
geon. In the meanwhile, the workmen in the adit 
became alarmed for their safety, fresh hands were 
incessantly employed, and, in the course of twenty- 
four hours, the passage was so opened as to admit 
some of the most active among the miners ; but the 
situation of the two unhappy prisoners, who had sat 
down together in a very distant chamber of the cavern, 
prevented them from hearing altogether the noise 
and shouts of their friends, who thus laboured to 
assist them. 

" Fortunately, it occurred to one of the lads, (after 
his voice had become hoarse with shouting,) that the 
noise of miners' hammers was often heard at consi- 
derable distances through the coal works ; in conse- 
quence of this reflection, he took up a stone, which 
he frequently struck against the sides of the cavern ; 
the noise of this was at length heard by the workmen, 
who, in their turn, adopted a similar artifice ; by this 
means each party was conducted towards the other, 
and the unfortunate adventurers extricated time 
enough to behold the sun risen in full splendour, which 
they had left the morning before just beginning to 
tinge the eastern horizon. On examining this subter- 
ranean wonder, it was found to be a complete gallery, 
which had been driven forward many hundred yards 
to the bed of coal : that it branched off into numerous 
chambers, where miners had carried on their different 
works : that these chambers were dressed in a work- 



410 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 






manlike manner : that pillars were left at proper 
intervals to support the roof. In short, it was found 
to be an extensive mine, wrought by a set of people 
at least as expert in the business as the present gene- 
ration. Some remains of the tools, and even of the 
baskets used in the works, were discovered, but in 
such a decayed state, that on being touched, they 
immediately crumbled to pieces. From the remains 
which were found, there is reason to believe that the 
people who wrought these collieries anciently, were 
acquainted with the use of iron, some small pieces of 
which were found ; it appeared as if some of their 
instruments had been thinly shod with that metal." 

There is no question but that the era when those 
collieries were before worked, was that in which the 
Tuath-de-danaans were masters of this island. Had it 
been at any latter period, we could not fail having 
some traditions relating thereto. Iron, therefore, the 
last discovered of the metals, as stated at page 115, 
must have been known to this people : and the 
absence of any name for it in our vernacular lan- 
guage, is accounted for on the same principle as that, 
by which those excavations themselves had been so 
long concealed, viz., the distaste of their successors 
to such applications, or the reluctance entertained to 
make them acquainted with their worth. 

It is probable, however, that the little minikin 
fineries of life were not then in fashion — that our 
loaves were not baked in tin shapes, as at present, — 
nor our carriages constructed in so many different 
varieties of form, excluding altogether those worked 
by steam, — that our gunlocks were not prepared with 
percussion caps ; nor our sofas furnished with air-blown 
cushions, — that the routine of etiquette was differ- 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 411 

ently negotiated, — and that twenty, or more, several 
hands were not employed in the finish of a common 
pin, before it could be dignified with the honour of 
acting a useful part in adjusting the habiliments of a 
modern dandy : — but in all the grand essentials of 
life — in all its solid refinements and elegant utilities, 
the scholar will confess that those who have gone 
before us have been fully our equals ; and traces, too, 
are not wanting to countenance the belief, that even 
those knick-knack frivolities, on which we so pique 
ourselves in the present day, have not been at some 
period without a prototype, — so that the majority of 
those boasted patents for what are considered disco- 
veries or inventions of something new, should more 
properly be for recoveries, or unfoldings of something 
old, and illustrative of the adage, as remarkable as 
it is correct, " that there is nothing new under the 
sun . 

* " L' existence de ce peuple anterieur est prouvee par le tableau qui 
noffre que des debris, astronomie oubliee, philosophie melee a des absur- 
dites, pbysique degeneree en fables, religion epuree, mais cachee dans 
une idolatrie grossiere. Get ancien peuple a eu des sciences perfec- 
tionnees, une pbilosopbie sublime et sage." — Bailly. 



4J2 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

You ask me for the proofs of this early grandeur 1 
I point you to the gold crowns — the gold and silver 
ingots — the double-headed pateree or censers — the 
anklets, lunettes, bracelets, fibulae, necklaces, &c, 
which have been repeatedly found throughout all 
parts of Ireland, evidently the relics of that "Sacred" 
colony who gave their name to this island, and who, 
to the refined taste which such possessions imply, 
united also the science which appears in their work- 
manship *. 

But these are scanty and insufficient memorials ? 
Pray, what greater can you produce of ancient 
Egypt ? Her Pyramids ? Our " Round Towers" are 
as old ; are likely to be as permanent ; and are 
really more beautiful. What are the vestiges of 
ancient Etruria? of Assyria? Troy? Chaldea? nay, of 
Babylon the Great, the queen of the world? A few 
consolidations of stone and mortar — disjointed rub- 
bish — and incrusted pottery. All these we retain, in 
addition to the thousand other evidences which crowd 
upon the historian. And, while Britain can adduce 
no single vestige of the Romans — who subjugated 

* Amongst our antiquities also are found nose-rings (nasc-sroin) 
which, stronger than any other demonstration, shows the orientalism of 
our Tuath-de-danaan ancestors. Their ear-rings, also, are thus defined 
in Comrac's Glossary, " Arc nasc — vel, a-naisc, bid im cluas — aibh 
na saoreland," i. e., a ring worn in the ears of our gentry. 



THE ROUXD TOWERS. 413 

that country at their highest period of civilization — 
but what, in the words of my adversaries themselves, 
are " only monuments of barbarism," I answer — no 
wonder — for the Romans were never to be compared to 
the Iranian Buddhists, who brought all the splendour 
of the East to the concentrated locality of this Hyper- 
borean Island. 

" Infant colonies, forsooth, do not carry a know- 
ledge of the ' Fine Arts ' along with them ; they are 
only to be found where wealth, luxury, and power 
have fixed their abode *." Most sapient remark ! but 
unluckily out of place ; for the authors of our Round 
Towers were not " an infant colony" at all ; but the 
very heads and principals of the most polished and 
refined people on the bosom of the habitable earth — 
the Buddhists of Iran. And, accordingly, in their train 
not only did " wealth, luxury, and power " abound, 
but they seemed exclusively to have taken up their 
abode amongst them ]\ 

Analogous to the above was the rhodomontade of 
another pillar of the same order. " I, nevertheless," 
says Montmorency, " am disinclined to believe that 
those same persons, had they to choose a residence 
between Syria and Ireland, would have taken the 
wintry and uncultivated wilds of Fidh-Inis, in pre- 
ference to the sunny plains which gave them birth J." 

In both those cases, of which the former is but the 
echo, in all opinions, of the latter, our eastern ex- 
traction is only objected to, considered as Phoenician ; 

* Dublin Penny Journal. 

t Si j'ai bien prouve que Butta, Thoth, et Mercure ne sont egalement 
que le meme inventeur des sciences et des arts. — Bailly. 

The Buddhists insist that the religion of Buddha existed from the 
beginning. — Asiatic Researches. 

% Gentleman's Magazine, Nov. 1822. 



414 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

and there, I admit that the Colonel and his pupil 
may get an easy triumph over their adversaries. For 
had the Phoenicians been the erectors of those " Round 
Towers," what was to prevent their raising similar 
structures in Cornwall ? — where it is indisputable that 
they had trafficked for tin. In Spain, we are certain 
that they had established a home ; and why does this 
appear as free from every evidence of columnar archi- 
tecture, as does the former place ? The same may be 
said of other countries whither this people resorted, 
Citium, Crete, Cadiz, and all the islands in the 
Mediterranean. In no one of them is there to be found 
a single edifice approaching, either in design or form, 
the idea of a Round Tower * ! 

The Phoenicians, therefore, can have no pretensions 
to the honour of those memorials : nor, indeed, can their 
connexion with Ireland be at all recognized, further 
than that, as having been, at one time, masters of 
the sea, it is merely possible that the Tuath-de-danaans 
may have availed themselves of their geographical 
information, and even consigned themselves to' their 
pilotage for a secure retreat, aloof from the persecu- 
tion of intolerance. 

But as we see from the stanza quoted at page 396, 
that the Tuath-de-danaans were themselves possessed 
of a navy ; and as it is indisputable that, long before 
the Phoenicians, the dynasty of the Persians had swept 
the ocean in its widest breadth, there is no need for 
our giving the Phoenicians credit even for this service, 
which it now appears could be dispensed with. 

An effort, however, has been advanced, to identify 

* In the entire land of Phoenicia there was but one, and that com- 
paratively a modern one, erected no doubt after their intercourse with the 
Tuath-de-danaans. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 41-3 

their language with ours, by the analysis of the 
fragment of a speech which occurs in one of the plays 
of Plautus *. The idea was ingenious, but totally 
unfounded. Affinity, undoubtedly, there does appear, 
— as there does between all the ancient languages, — 
but nothing like identity ; and the very circumstance 
of its having a distinct denomination assigned to it in 
Ireland, viz., Bearla-na-Fene, or dialect of the Phoe- 
nicians, (who traded here, it is admitted) proves it to 
be different from our local phraseology — the Iranian 
Pahlavi, the polished elocution of the Tuath-de- 
danaans. 

The Phoenicians, besides being a mercantile people, 
never had any monuments of literary value, whereas 
the Irish are known to have abounded in such from 
the earliest eraf. 

* The play above alluded to is that of the Psenulus, or Carthaginian, 
in which Hanno is introduced in quest of his two daughters, who, with 
their nurse, had been stolen by pirates, and conveyed to Calydon, in 
yEtolia. Thither the father repairs on receiving intelligence of the fact, 
and addresses a supplication to the presiding deity of the country, to 
restore to him his children unstained by pollution. He is made to speak 
in his vernacular tongue, just as natives of France are represented in 
our drama by Shakspeare : and so interesting is the whole — indepen- 
dently of the curiosity attaching to so rare a production — that I shall sub- 
join a portion of it for the reader. 

1. 
Nith al o nim, ua lonuth secorathessi ma com syth. 
An iath al a nim, uaillonac socruidd se me com sit. 
O mighty splendour of the land, renowned, powerful ; let him quiet 
me with repose. 

2. 
Chin lach chunyth mumys tyal mycthii barii imi schi. 
Cim laig cungan, muin is toil, mo iocd bearad iar mo sgil. 
Help of the weary captive, instruct me according to thy will, to re- 
cover my children after my fatigue. 
N.B. The first line in each of these triplets is Phoenician, the second 
Irish, and the third, their import in English. 

t " How comes it then that they are so unlearned — still, being so old 
scholars ? for learning (as the poet saith) emollit mores ncc sinit esse 






416 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

It is true that we have been denied the possession 
of alphabetic characters before the time of St. Pa- 
trick : but by whom ? By Bolandus ; on a false de- 
duction from the writings of Ward,- Colgan, Nennius, 
&c, who state that this Apostle was the first who 
gave the u abjectoria," or alphabet to our nation. 
Who says otherwise? But what alphabet was here 
meant? The Latin, certainly, and no other. Until 
then the Irish were strangers to the Roman letters*; 
but that they were not to written characters, or the 
cultivation of them in every variety of literature, is 
evident from the very fact, of St. Patrick himself 
having committed to the flames no less than one hun- 
dred and eighty volumes of our ancient theology f : 
as well as from the recorded instance of his disciple, 
Benignus, — his successor also in the see of Armagh, — 
having, according to Ward, written a work on the 
virtues of the Saint, half Latin and half Irish, and 
which Jocelyne afterwards availed himself of, when 
more fully detailing his biography. 

It has been the custom in all ages with those who 

feros; whence then, I pray you, could they have those letters?" He 
answers, " It is hard to say, for whether they at the first coming into the 
land, or afterwards by trading with other nations, learned them of them, 
or devised them amongst themselves, is very doubtful, but that they had 
letters anciently is nothing doubtful, for the Saxons of England are 
said to have their letters and learning, and learned men, from the Irish. 
And that also appeareth from the likeness of the character, for the 
Saxons character is the same with the Irish. — Spenser. 

* Having been always free and independent of the empire of the 
Romans, they were unacquainted with the Roman language and its 
characters : there were, therefore, but two courses to adopt ; either to 
translate the holy books into the language of the country, and celebrate 
the divine mysteries in it, which would have been contrary to the cus- 
tom of the church, or to teach the characters of the Roman language to 
those who were to instruct others ; the holy apostle adopted the latter 
course. — Abbe Mac Geohigan, 

t Book of Cashel. 



IKK ROUND TOWERS. 417 

would pass as the luminaries of their "respective 
generations, to maintain that letters and their appli- 
cation were but a recent discovery ! Their antiquity, 
however, is an historical fact, than which there can be 
no other better authenticated. The Bible makes 
frequent allusion to the cultivation of alphabetic 
cyphers — thus in Exodus xxiv. 4, it is said, et And 
Moses wrote all the words of the Lord." And in 
Joshua xxiv. 26, " And Joshua wrote these words in 
the book of the law of God." 

Nor is it only to the elementary part of literature, 
but to the very highest and noblest department of 
literary research that we find the ancients had ar- 
rived. In the history of Job, an acquaintance with 
astronomy is quite apparent. The names of Arcturus, 
Orion, and the Pleiades *, are distinctly notified in 
that elaborate composition \. Could this have been 
without the aid of written characters? Could the 
abstruse calculations involved in that pursuit be 
possibly carried on without an intimate knowledge of 
notation and of numbers ? Or, if superior memory 
may effect it in a few cases, without such characters or 
legible marks, how could the results arrived at, and 
the steps by which they had been attained, be for 
any length of time preserved, and their value handed 
down to successive experimentalists, unless by the 
instrumentality of expressive signs ? 

We find accordingly in the same treatise £, the art 

* Job viii. 8, and xix. 23. 

t " There is no Mahomedan of learning in Persia or India who is not 
an astrologer : rare works upon that science are more valued than any 
other ; and it is remarkable that on the most trivial occasions, when cal- 
culating nativities and foretelling events, they deem it essential to de- 
scribe the planets in terms not unsuited to the account which the author 
of the Dabistarfjias given of these deities" — Sir John Malcolm. 

% Job xix. 23, 24. 

2 E 



418 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



of writing expressly named, thus, " O that my words 
were now written ! Oh ! that they were printed in a 
book : that they were graven with an iron pen, and 
laid in the rock for ever !" And that it was of long- 
continued usage is evident from a preceding chapter*, 
where it is said, " Enquire, I pray thee, of the former 
age, and prepare thyself for the search of their 
fathers !" 

The alphabet which we had here, before the Roman 
abjectorium, is still preserved, and called Beth-luis- 
7iion f , from the names of its three first letters, just as 
the English is denominated ABC, from a similar 
cause; and the Greek Alpha-bet from a like considera- 
tion. 









Irish. 


Latin. 


English. 


1 


B 


6 


Beithe, 


Betulla, 


Birch. 


o 


L 


V 


Luis, 


Ornus, 


Wild ash. 


3 


N 


N 
s 


Nion, 


Fraxinus, 


Ash. 


4 


S 


Suil, 


Salix, 


Willow. 


5 


F 


F 


Fearn, 


Alnus, 


Alder. 


6 


H 


f) 


Huatb, 


Oxiacanthus, 


White thorn . 


7 


D 


b 


Duir, 


Ilex, 


Oak. 


8 


TJ 


u 


Timne, 


Genist. Spin. 


Furze. 


9 


C 


c 


Coll, 


Corylus, 


Hazel. 


10 


M 


CO 


Muin, 


Vitis, 


Vine. 


11 


G 


Z 


Govt, 


Hedera, 


Ivy. 


12 


P 


V 

d 




Peth-bhogj 


Beite, or B mollified, 


13 


R 


Ruis, 


Sambucus, 


Elder. 


14 


A 


Ailm, 


Abies, 


Fir tree. 


15 


O 


Orm, 


Genista, 


Broom. 


16 


U 


u 


Ur, 


Eiix, or Erica, 


Heath. 


17 


E 


€ 


Eghadh, 


Tremula, 


Aspen. 


18 


I 


5 


Iodha, 


Taxus, 


Yew. 



* Job viii. 8. 

t Since I have commenced this work, a very ancient manuscript of 
the abbey of Icclm kill has fallen into my hands ; it was written by 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



419 



This, you perceive, falls short, by eight letters, of 
the number of the Latin cyphers, which could not have 
occurred if borrowed from that people ; and will, 
therefore, stand, independently and everlastingly, a 
self-evident proof of the reverse. 

It is well known, that long prior to the arrival of 
Cadmus, the Greeks were in possession of alphabetic 
writing*. Diodorus states so; but adds, that a 
deluge had swept all away. One thousand five hun- 
dred and fifty, before the era we count by, is agreed 



'"•""•"■" h iH II - llll - / #// • 1 • 1H1I •■ H H- 



J\ 






fff-l-llffi. 



tl •illinium 



Cairbre-Liffeachair, who lived six generations before St. Patrick, and 
about the time of our Saviour : an exact account is given in it of Irish 
kings, from whence I infer, that as the Irish had manuscripts at that 
period, we must certainly have possessed them likewise. 

* yEschylus would seem to refer to this, when he makes Prometheus 
say, " I invented for them the array of letters, and fixed the memory, 
the mother of knowledge, and the soul of life." — Bloomfield's edition, 
v. 469. 

2 e 2 



420 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

upon as the year, in which Cadmus visited Greece ; 
and you have the authority of Pausanias, that he 
himself had read an inscription upon a monument at 
Megara, the date of which was 1678 before our 
epoch, that is, one hundred and twenty-eight years 
before Cadmus's time. 

Besides those ordinary letters of the Beth-luis-nio?i, 
the Irish made use of various other occult and secret 
forms of writing, which they called ogham *, and of 
which I insert some specimens. 

Among these you perceive the arrow-headed figures 
whereof I have already advertised you ; and the mys- 
terious import of which reminded the initiated of the 
solemn purchase of salvation by the cross. 

These are all peculiar, and totally separate from 
any Phoenician alliance. Instead, therefore, of my 
being adverse to the moderns as to the Phoenician 
bubble, I am their auxiliary. But, Mr. Montmorency, 
are there not other places in the east besides Phoe- 
nicia ? And may not a people leave the " sunny plains 
that gave them birth," from other motives than those 
of " choice ?" And may not " Fidh Inis," instead 
of being a name of reproach, such as you affected, by 
associating it with " wintry and uncultivated wilds," 
be one of distinction and of renown? And though to 
you its authors, as well as the mystery of its import, 
were an impenetrable secret, may it not, notwithstand- 
ing — what you see verified now — be made one of the 
engines exercised, in the recovery of truth, to prove 
the splendour and the refinement of our venerable 
ancestors ? 

It is to be hoped, therefore, that, after this expla- 

* Tov 'F.^u,xXi(z 01 KiXrii OI'MION oin^uZflVcn tyon/H Trt friy^upiu. 

LuriA.fr. 



THE HOUND TOWERS, 421 

nation, we shall hear no more sarcasms upon this 
favoured spot. Nor would the anticipation be too 
great, that the whole infidel host, with the gallant 
colonel himself at their head, becoming alive to the 
injustice of their former disbelief, would now slacken 
their virulence, and if they will not join in the accla- 
mations of regenerated history, at least decently with- 
draw, and let the lovers of truth, in security and hap- 
piness, celebrate its triumph. 

' : The appellation of Britain,' 1 says another goodlyQ) 
champion of this order, " has been tortured for ages 
by the antiquarians, in order to force a confession of 
origin and import for it. And erudition, running 
wild in the mazes of folly, has eagerly deduced it 
from every word of a similar sound, almost in every 
known language of the globe. But the Celtic is 
obviously the only one that can lay any competent 
claim to it — and the meaning of it may as easily be 
ascertained as its origin." — And so, accordingly, he 
proceeds to show, that " Breatin, Brydain, or Britain," 
is derived from a " Celtic word/' which signifies " se- 
paration or division* !" 

It is more than probable that I should have left 
Mr. Whittaker to his vagaries, or rather his clerical 
recreations, if he had not been propelled by his all- 
illuminating reforms, to glance a ray upon us, here, 
across St. George's Channel. — " This," says he, " has 
equally given denomination to the tribes of Ireland, 
the nations of Caledonia, and two or three islands on 
our coasts !" 

" The original word is still retained in the Welch, 
Britain; and the Irish, Breact, — anything divided or 

* WhitUiker's Manchester. 



422 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



striped; in the Irish Bricth, a fraction; the Irish 
Brisead, a rupture; and the Welch Brig, a breach. 
And it was equally pronounced Brict, or Brit, (as the 
Icitus of Caesar, or the Itium of Strabo,) Bris and 
Brig; and appears, with this variety of terminations, 
in the usual appellation of the islanders, Britanni, in 
the present denomination of the Armorican Britons, 
and their language, Brez and Brezonic, and in the 
name of Brigantes. Brit is enlarged into Briton, or 
Brit-an in the plural, and Britan-ec in the relative 
adjective. And so forms the appellation Britones, 
Britani, and Britanici; as Brig is either changed 
into Briges, in the plural, and makes Allobroges, or 
Allo-broges, the name of a tribe on the continent, and 
of all the Belgse in the island, is altered into Brigan 
and Brigants, and forms the denomination of Bri- 
gantes." And again, " the original word appears to 
have been equally pronounced Brict, Brits, and 
Bricth, Breact, Breac, and Brig ; and appears to be 
derived from the Gallic Bresche, a rupture, the Irish 
Bris, to break, and Brisead, a breach. And the word 
occurs with all this variety of termination in the Irish 
Breattain or Breatin, Bretam, and in Breathnach, 
Briotnach, and Breagnach, a Briton ; in the Armori- 
can names of Breton, Breiz, and Brezonnec, for an 
individual, the country, and the language of Armo- 
rica ; in the Welch Brython and Brythoneg, the Bri- 
tons and their language ; and in the ancient synony- 
mous appellations of Brigantes and Britanni." 

Doubtless, the reader has been highly edified by 
this Britannic dissertation ! He is, I am sure, as 
thorough master of the subject, now, as Mr. Whit- 
taker himself! — can tell how many fractures, cross- 
lines, and diagonals have been made upon Britain 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 423 

ever since Noah's food! And as he cannot fail, in 
consequence, being in love with the Reverend Author, 
I will indulge his fondness by another spark of en- 
lightment. 

" At this period," he resumes, (three hundred 
years before Christ,) " many of the natives, relin- 
quishing their ancient seats to the Belgae, found all 
the central and northern parts of England already 
occupied, and transported themselves into the unin- 
habited isle of Ireland !" 

I will now be understood as to the promise made 
some while ago*, in reference to a definition for the 
word modern. A modern then, be it known, is a phi- 
losopher^), who fancies that until three hundred years 
before Christ, the whole world was in darkness ! physical 
as well as metaphysical ! that it was even, in a great 
measure, uninhabited! by other than the brute crea- 
tion ! — but that, suddenly, whenever any mighty feat 
was to be achieved, (in other words, whenever a mo- 
dern theory was to be bolstered up) innumerable myr- 
midons, armed cap-a-pie ! — -full accoutred, booted and 
spurred! used to gush forth from some obscure corner 
of the earth ! A miracle of production, to which 
even Cadmus's soldiers can bear no parallel ; for, 
while the latter are located to a particular place, 
and stated to have been generated by regular seed, 
even though that was nothing more than the tooth 
of a dragon f, the former burst forward, nobody 
knows whence, nor will their machiners condescend 
to tell even so much as what may have been the ele- 
ments of their composition ! 

* See page 332. 

'<■ An allegory, by the way, which I could explain satisfactorily, were 
it not that it would detain me. 



424 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

To whom, however, is Mr. Whittaker beholden for 
this intellectual idea? Verily, to a half-senseless 
poor friar *, a few centuries deceased, who was no 
more competent — and no blame to him from his 
resources — to analyse this question, than he was to 
stop the revolutions of the celestial orbs ! 

Yet jejune and abortive as were Cirencester's cere- 
bral conceptions, he was not less dogmatic in the 
utterance of them than was his imitator. ( ' It is most 
certain,"" says he, " that the Damnii, Voluntii, Bri- 
gantes, Cangi, and other nations, were descended 
from the Britons, and passed over thither after Divi- 
tiacus, or Claudius, or Ostorius, or other victorious 
generals had invaded their original countries. Lastly, 
the ancient language, which resembles the old British 
and Gallic tongues, affords another argument, as is 
well known to persons skilled in both languages." 

Now, by what authority, may I ask, is all this 
" most certain ?" And by authority I do not mean 
any quotation from previous historians. That I 
waive, and should not here require it, if either proof 
or 'probability were tendered of the occurrence. But 
as none such is vouchsafed — as all is mere assertion — 
and as I can prove the exact contrary to have been the 
actual fact, is not dogmatism too mild a name to apply 
to the scribbler who propounds such nonsense ? And 
is not servility too dignified an epithet to brand upon 
the copyist, who takes such ipse dixit evidence upon 
so intricate a proposition as gospel truth? and that 
too when he must have absolute demonstration, and 

* Oh ! Richard of Cirencester, oh ! what pleasure it affords me to see 
the moderns running after the chariot wheels of the monks, whenever 
they can pick out amongst their lucubrations any stray sentences to sup- 
port their own fantasies ! 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 425 

canvas every other statement, emanating from that 
fraternity, with the very eye of a Lynceus ! 

In the first place, then, the name Danmii (to begin 
with the beginning) is but a monkish Latinisation for 
Danaans ; and these, I have established to have been 
an eastern race, totally and universally distinct from 
Britain, until upon their overthrow in Ireland, they 
fled for shelter to Scotland, whither on their way, 
some straggling parties, reduced and humiliated, took 
up their residence in the northern parts of England ; 
where, accordingly, to this hour we find evidences of 
their worship, such as sculptured crosses*, and other 
emblematic devices, but never a Round Tower, their im- 
poverished circumstances not being now adequate to 
such an expense. 

The Brigantes, again, is another Latin metamor- 
phosis for the inhabitants of Breo-cean, in Spain, 
where the Phoenicians had fixed a colony, and whence 
they doubtless had brought some portion with them to 
work the mines at Cornwall. This Breo-cean the Ro- 
mans, in conformity with the genius of their language, 
changed into Bn-gantia, which, however, was a very 
allowable commutation, the letters c and g- being 
always convertible, and tia nothing more than an 
ordinary termination. 

Seneca well knew that the Brigantes thus imported 
were a very different extraction from the native 
Britons. 

" Illi Britannos ultra noti littora ponti, 
Et cceruleos Scuto-Brigantes dare Romuleis," 

* " Near the road (at a place called Margan) is an old cross, bearing 
an inscription, which has been doomed to serve as a bridge for foot pas- 
sengers over a little rivulet ; and in the village are fragments of a most 
beautiful cross richly decorated with fretwork." — C'ambrensis. 




426 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

says he, in his satirical invective upon the death of 
Claudius. Here, you will observe, that the Britons 
and the Brigantes are opposed to one another, and 
marked out as distinct races. And to specify still 
further the origin of the Brigantes is the epithet 
Scuto* prefixed thereto, from Scuitte, the ancient mode 
of spelling Scythia. 

Those Scoto-Brigantes were the persons who, hav- 
ing been driven from Spain by the conquests of Sesos- 
tris, poured in with multitudinous inundation upon the 
quietude of our Tuath-dc-danaans, and wrested from 
them an island which, during their blissful reign, had 
eclipsed in sanctity even their former Iranf. 

The language which they spoke differed in nothing 
from the Tuath-de-danaan, but that it was not quite 
so refined ; and this feature of similarity silences at 
once, the conjectures of Stilling fleet, Innes, and their 
followers, who would make those Scythians to, be 
Scandinavians, merely because the letter £ occurs as 
the initial and final of either name ! 

Why, sir, when the Scandinavians did really invade 
Ireland, which was not until the early centuries of the 
Christian era, the great obstruction to their progress 
was their ignorance of our tongue ; whereas, when the 
Scythians arrived here, many ages earlier, our legends, 
our traditions, our histories, and our annals, unani- 



* Some copies read Scoto, the meaning, however, is the same ; the 
only difference being that the latter partakes of the modern enunciations 
of the word, as Scots, instead of Scuits or Scythiajis. 

+ In the anxiety with which my translation of " Phoenician Ireland " 
was hurried through the press, it inadvertently escaped me that the 
Scythians had only touched at Spain. The above will correct the over- 
sight ; to which I shall add that, " as for entitling the Spa?iish-Irish 
Scots, there wants no authority, the Irish authors having constantly 
called the Spanish colony Kin-Scuit, or the Scottish nation." — Lhttydh. 



THE ROUXD TOWERS. 427 

mously and universally attest, that they used the same 
conversable articulation with that of the established 
dynasty *. 

Where is the wonder, then, that we should find all 
the ancient names in the north of England, correspond 
to a nicety with those of the Irish ? And which made 
Lhuydh, the author of the Archaeologia, himself an 
Englishman, declare, " how necessary the Irish lan- 
guage is to those who shall undertake to write of the 
antiquity of the isle of Britain." 

But if Lhuydh was thus candid in the avowal of his 
conviction, he was not equally successful in the dis- 
covery of the relationship. From want of the true 
touchstone, he went on hypothesising ! and came at last 
to the supposition! " that the Irish must at one time 
have been in possession of those English localities, 
and thence removed themselves into Ireland ! " the 
exact opposite having been the fact. 

To atone for my long digression from Mr. Whitta- 
ker, and his breakages, I will supply to you the deri- 
vations, as well of Britain as of Brigantia. The 
former is compounded of Bruit, tin ; and tan, a 
country abounding in that metal, and corresponding 
to Cassiteris, assigned to it by the Greeks : and 
Brigantia, as before explained, being but a formative 
from Breo-cean, is compounded of Breo, which signifies 
fire ; and cea?i, a head or promontory, meaning the 
head-land of fires ; or that whereon such used to have 
been lighted for the convenience of mariners lying- 
out at sea t- 

* " Every argument of the origin of emigrant nations must, after all, 
be referred to language." — Camden. 

■i' The derivation of those two terms is not exclusively mine. It is but 
the repetition of the received interpretation of all men of letters. 



428 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Neither the Scythians, therefore, nor the Celts, 
had connexion whatsoever, either of them, with the 
once-envied celebrity of this " island *." The latter 
were the persons who, under the name of Fir-Bolgs, 
erected all the cromleachs spread over the country, 
the accomplishment of which bespeaks, it is true, an 
acquaintance with mechanics, of which the present 
artisans are altogether ignorant. And as the ori- 
ginal of their denomination has never been eluci- 
dated, I embrace this opportunity of supplying the 
omission. It comes from bolog, which, in the Irish 
language, signifies a paunch ; and fir, a man ; so that 
Fir-Bolg means the big-bellied man, being an evi- 
dent allusion to their bodily configuration : and to 
this day Bolcaig is the epithet applied, vernacularly, 
to individuals of large girth or corpulent robustness, 
exactly corresponding to what we are told by Caesar, 
when describing the tripartite division of Gaul, viz., 
that the Belgse, who, in fact, were of the same stock 
as our Fir-Bolgs, were the stoutest bodied, and the 
bravest otherwise, of all its inhabitants. 

The Scythian religion, which was Druidical, ac- 
corded with that of the Fir-Bolgs, which was Celtic, 
— not less as to modes of worship, than in mutual 
aversion to that of the Iranians ; and, accordingly, we 
find, that when both conspired for the recovery of this 
country from the Iranians, who had themselves wrested 
it from the Fir-Bolgs, antecedently, these latter branch- 
ing out into the septs of Cauci and Menapii, corre- 

* " For it is to be thought, that the use of all England was in the 
raigne of Henry the Second, when Ireland Mas planted with English, 
very rude and barbarous, so as if the same should be now used in Eng- 
land by any, it would seem worthy of sharpe correction, and of new 
lawes for reformation, for it is but even the other day since England 
grew civill."— Spenser. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 429 

sponding to the kindred and cognominal tribes on the 
continent; and who, during the occupancy of the Ira- 
nians, — the interval of Ireland's Hyperborean renown, 
— had retired to Arran* and the northern isles, — were 
restored to a partnership in the possession of the 
island, in return for the assistance they lent the 
Scythians for its conquest : — and this accounts for 
that diversity of races which Ptolemy records, but 
which antiquarian luminaries, unable to comprehend, 
took upon them to reject as altogether a chimera. 

As to the Iranians — the real Hibernians, — the true 
Hyperborean Tuath-de-danaans, or Magic-god Almo- 
ners — they were hurled from the throne — their sanc- 
tified ceremonials trampled in the dust — their sacred 
harps, which before used to swell to the praises of 
their Divinity, were now desecrated for the inspiration 
of the Scythian warriors, — and their divine Boreades, 
who erenow composed canticles in adoration of Apollo, 
were degraded to the secular and half-military occu- 
pation of Scythian Bards. 

The name of the island itself, from " Irin," or the 
" Sacred island," was changed into Scuitte, that is, 
Scotia or Scythia, or the Land of the Scythians. Nor 
was it until the eleventh century of the present era, 
that, to remove the ambiguity which arose from the cir- 
cumstance of there being another country also called by 
this name, Ireland resumed its former name, Irin, as 
its people did Irenses, instead of Scoti f. 

* The name of Arran was given to this island as expressive of the 
land of the unfaithful, in opposition to our Iran, or the land of the 
unfaithful : both corresponding to the Iran and An-Iran of the Persians. 

f This, however, did not happen at first ; for the name of Ireland was 
not yet generally used among strangers, as Adam de Breme, who lived 
in the eleventh century, and Nuhigensis, in the twelfth, were the first 
who mentioned it : the name of Scotland was by degrees appropriated 









430 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Yet in the general transmutation which so great a 
revolution bespeaks, we behold the strictest regard 
paid to the literary fame and the mental acquire- 
ments of those sages who had been ejected. They 
were retained as the instructors of the new esta- 
blishment ; and their refined precepts tending gra- 
dually to soften the warlike propensities of this fero- 
cious group, the amalgamation became so complete, 
and the aristocracy of intellect so recognised, that 
when religious dissensions were all cancelled in the 
grave, many of them were able to trace their steps 
backwards to the forfeited monarchy. 

Of this number was Connachar-mor-mac-Nessan, 
that is, Connor the-great-son-of-Nessan, styled indif- 
ferently Feidlimidh and Ollamh Fodlah, i. e., the Erudite 
man (the Budhist) and the Doctor of Budland ; and 
Brien, who ascended the Irish throne, A. D. 1014 ; 
and who, after a succession of two thousand two 
hundred years, was the lineal descendant of Brien, 
head of the Tuath-de-danaans ; and this very extrac- 
tion, in the confusion of the names, was the circum- 
stance which occasioned the popular belief, not yet 
exploded, of his having been the founder, by magic 
creation, in one single night, of those Round Towers 
of his inheritance ! The mistake, however, is of value, 



to Albania, which was for some time called Little Scotland, " Scotia 
Minor," to distinguish it from Ireland, which was called " Scotia Major," 
whose inhabitants did not lose all of a sudden the name of Scots ; they 
are so called in the eleventh century by Herman, in the first book of 
his chronicle ; by Marianus Scotus, Florentius Wigorniensis, in his 
annals, in which, having inserted the chronicle of Marianus, in men- 
tioning the year 1028, he says, "in this year was born Marianus, probably 
a Scot from Ireland, by whose care this excellent chronicle has been 
compiled from several histories." We discover the same thing in a chro- 
nicle in the Cottonian library. — Abbe Mac Geoghegan. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 431 

as it is a collateral evidence that those edifices have 
been attributed to their real authors ; and the ana- 
chronism will be excused, seeing that there is nothing; 
more common than to assign to one Hercules the 
exploits of another. 

Others of this colony, who could not brook the 
yoke, betook themselves on their downfall to Scot- 
land, and built there the two round temples of Brechin 
and Abernethy, besides others that have disappeared ; 
from thence, however, they were again dislodged by 
the barbarous Picts, and obliged to fly for shelter to 
the Highland fastnesses. These are they whom Mac- 
culloch and others have misrepresented as Celts. 
During their sway in that country, they called it also 
by the name of Iran or Eran_, as the Scotch lan- 
guage is, to this day, called Irish, or Erse. The name 
of Scoitte, i, e., Scotia, was given it afterwards by the 
Picts, in compliment to this island, which had fur- 
nished them w r ith wives, and otherwise joined their 
fraternity *. 

* The Picts, confiding in the happy omen of future friendship from 
the Scots, obtained wives from them, and thereby contracted so close an 
alliance, that they seemed to form but one people ; so that the passage 
between the two countries being free, a number of Scots came and 
settled amongst the Picts, who received them with joy. — Buchanan. 

Britannia post Britones et Pictos tertiam Scotorum nationem in Pic- 
torum parte, recepit, qui, duce Reuda, de Hibernia progressi, vel amicitia 
vel ferro, sibimet inter eos sedes quas hactenus habent, vindicarunt, a 
quo scilicet duce usque hodie Dalreundini vocantur. — Beda, Hist. Eccles. 
lib. i. cap. 1. 

Cambrensis says, that in the reign of Niall the Great in Ireland, the 
six sons of Muredus, king of Ulster, with a considerable fleet, seized on 
the northern part of Britain, and founded a nation, called Scotia. — Topog. 
Hib.dist. 3. cap. 16. 

" It is certain," says Camden, "that the Scots went from Ireland into 
Britain. Orosius, Bede, and Eginard, bear indisputable testimony that 
Ireland was inhabited by the Scots." Elsewhere he calls the Irish the 
ancestors of the Scotch. " Hiberni Scotorum atavi." 



432 



CHAPTER XXIX. 



" The Scoto-Milesians," says Dr. Hales *, " reckon 
twenty-three generations from Feni an fear soid, ' the 
Phoenician wise man,' their ancestor, to Heber and 
Heremon, who established the last settlement from 
Spain, as observed before ; which, at the usual com- 
putation of three mean generations to .a century, 
would give 766 years from Fenius to Heber. But 
we learn from Coemhain, that the sons of Milesius 
(this should have been Gallamh |) were coeval with 
Solomon, and that the Gadelians \ came to Ireland in 
the middle of the reign of this illustrious prince," B.C. 
1002, according to the Irish chronology. Counting 
backwards, therefore, from this date, 766 years, we 
get the time of Fenius about B.C. 1768. And this 
agrees with sacred and profane history ; for Joshua, 
whose administration began B.C. 1688, according to 
Hales's Chronology, notices ""the strong city of Tyre," 
Josh. xix. 29 ; which maintained its independence 
even in David's days, 2 Sam. xxiv. 7 ; and in Solo- 
mon's, 1 Kings ix. 11 — 14. And Herodotus, that in- 
quisitive traveller and intelligent historian, who visited 
Tyre about b.c 448, saw there the temple of the 
Thasian Hercules ; and another erected to him by the 



* Author of the New Analysis of Chronology, and late fellow of 
Trinity College, Dublin. 
t See page 376. 
% This should have been Scythians. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 433 

Phoenicians at Thasus itself, an island on the coast of 
Thrace, while they were engaged in search of Europa, 
the daughter of Agenor, king of Tyre, who had been 
carried off by some Greeks ; an event, says Herodotus, 
which happened five generations before the Grecian 
Hercules, the son of Amphitryon, b. ii. § 44 ; who 
flourished about 900 years before he wrote, § 145, or 
about B.C. 1348, to which adding 166 years for the 
five generations, we get the rape of Europa about 
b.c. 1514. 

" But the deification of the Thasian Hercules must 
have been after his death, which may make him con- 
temporary with Joshua, or even earlier. Herodotus 
relates that the Tyrians themselves boasted of the 
remote antiquity of their city, founded, as they said, 
2300 years before, (b. xi. 44.) which would carry it 
higher than the deluge. The high antiquity, how- 
ever, of Sidon and her daughter Tyre, was. acknow- 
ledged by Xerxes, king of Persia, when he invaded 
Greece, b.c. 480 :- and in a council of his officers 
allowed her ambassadors the honour of precedence." 

<§ii.) 

He adds — " In order to determine the cardinal data 
of ancient Irish history, it is necessary to premise a 
synopsis of Coemhain's System of Chronology. 





Y. 


B.C. 


Creation 


1656 


3952 


Deluge 


292 


2296 


Abraham born 


942 


2004 


David, king 


. 473 


1062 


Babylonish Captivity 


589 


589 


Christian Era 


3952 


1 



" In this table, the first column contains the years 
elapsed between the succeeding events : thus, from 

2 F 






434 THE ROUND TOWERS, 

the creation, 1656 years to the deluge ; from the 
deluge, 292 years to the birth of Abraham, &c. ; and 
their amount, 3952 years, gives the basis of the sys- 
tem, or the years elapsed from the creation to the 
vulgar Christian era. The second column gives the 
dates of these events before the Christian era. 

" David began to reign b.c. 1062 ; from which 
subducting 60 years for the amount of his whole 
reign, 40 years, and 20 years, the half of Solomon's, 
we get b.c. 1002, for the date of the expedition of 
Heber and Heremon to Ireland. 

" This same number has been noticed by two 
earlier chronologers, Marcus Anchoreta, a.d. 647 ; 
and Nennius, a.d. 858: who both date the arrival 
of the Scoti in Ireland, ' 1002 years after the passage 
of the Red Sea by the Israelites, in which the Egyp- 
tians were drowned.' O'Connor, Proleg. ii. pp. 
15 — 45. The identity of the number 1002 proves 
the mistake in the reference to the exode of the 
Israelites, instead of to the Christian era, which 
depresses the arrival of the Scoti five centuries too 
low. For Coemhain reckons the exode 502 years 
after the birth of Abraham, or B.C. 1502; from which 
subtracting 1002 years, the arrival of the Scoti would 
be reduced to b.c 500; or, following Usher's date 
of the deluge, b.c. 1491. O'Connor reduces it still 
lower, to b.c 489.— Proleg. ii. p. 45. Upon the 
superior authority of Coemhain, therefore, as a chro- 
nologer, we are warranted to rectify this important 
error of Nennius and Marcus Anchoreta, which 
even Dr. O'Connor has failed to correct ; not ad- 
verting to the foregoing inference from Coemhain. 
But he has happily furnished himself the materials 
for proving the error. 



THE ROUXD TOWERS. 435 

" He states, that one hundred and eighteen kings 
of the Scoti reigned, till the arrival of St. Patrick, 
b.c. 489 + a. d. 432=921 years in all, which, 
divided by 118, would give too short an average of 
reigns, only 7-^y years a-piece ; whereas the true 
interval, b.c 1002 + a.d. 432=1434 years, would 
give the average of reigns above twelve years 
a-piece; which he justly represents as the standard, 
from Patrick to Malachy ii. viz. forty-eight reigns in 
590 years. — Proleg. ii. p. 45 *." 

The date of the Scythian invasion, then, being 
fixed as b.c. 1002, it is agreed on all hands that 
that of the Tuath-de- damans was but two hundred 
years anterior, or b.c. 1202 f, with this exactly cor- 
responds the time at which Marsden, Kcempfer, and 
Loubere date the arrival of the Buddists at Siam, viz., 
b.c. 1202. Among the Japanese also, they are 
stated by Klaproth to have arrived not very distant 
from that era, or b.c. 1029. De Guignes and Re- 
musat suppose 1029 as the epoch at which they 
invaded China, b.c 1000 is the epoch assigned by 
Symes for their descent upon the Burman empire ; 
and b.c 1029 is that fixed by Ozeray for their 
entrance into Ceylon ; while the Mogul authors and 
the Bagwad Amrita (Sir W. Jones) recognise their 
appearance respectively at B.C. 2044 and B.C. 2099. 

Now, the extreme concordance amongst the calcu- 
lations of those various countries, one with the other, 
and their almost universal coincidence, nay, in the 
Siamese authorities, almost miraculous identifications, 
with our Irish registries, as to the influx, amongst all, 

* Origin and Purity of the Primitive Churches of the British Isles. 
•I- Various colonies of the Tuath-de-clanaans had settled here : but I 
talk now of the last one, immediately preceding the Scythians. 

, 2f2 



436 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

of this singular people, and their extraordinary ritual, 
makes us associate the phenomena with one com- 
mon cause, and that was the expulsion of the Bud- 
hists from India, the Rajas having proclaimed, at the 
instigation of the rival Brahmins, that " from the 
bridge of Rama, even to the snow-capped Himala, 
no man should spare the Budhists, young or old, on 
pain of death." — Guigniaud's Creuzer. 

As to the Mogul dates^ and those of the Bagwad 
Amrita, they evidently bear reference to former colo- 
nies ; nor are we, in Ireland, without similar chronicles 
of an antecedent arrival, and precisely answering to 
the time of the first departure of the Tuath-de-danaans 
from the borders of Persia *. 

It was, indeed, the tradition of this early invasion, 
long mystified by age, that we have seen^so perverted 
at page 385, for the sole purpose of effecting a mi- 
racle ! Nor is this the only fable that fastens upon 
that narrative : we have that of Partholan and of 
Nemedius, and a thousand other reminiscences, all 
directing towards the centre of a. common nucleus. 
The East is the point whither they all aim, and the 
era they assign is invariably that of the deluge ! 
Is it not, therefore, inevitable, but that the object re- 
corded is our reception of the Tuath-de-danaans when 
ejected by the arms of their Pish-de-danaan rivals "\ ? 
Amongst the Easterns themselves we find corre- 
sponding traditions, wrapt up, as usual, in allegory, 
of this primordial departure. The Phrygians, who 
were one of the most ancient and considerable nations 
of Asia Minor, complain of Apollo having wandered 
from them, in company with Cybele, to the land of 

* See pages 259, 264, 5. 
% See pages 385, 282, and 259. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 437 

the Hyperboreans *. The costume of the archers 
upon our Knockmoy frescoes is strictly Phrygian, 
and confirms their testimony better than any written 
memorial ! " Hercules," says Cedrenus, " first taught 
philosophy in the western parts of the world." This 
was our Ogham, which the Gauls had borrowed from 
us, as you will see by note, page 420. " In Egypt," 
says Ausonius, " they called him Osiris, but in the 
island of Ogygia they gave him the name of Bacchus." 
If we will remember the form under which Osiris was 
worshipped, viz., that of our Round Toivers^, and 
then recollect that the name of Bacchus is still found 
amongst our ancient inscriptions J ; and in addition 
to all these, bear in mind that Plutarch § expressly 
designates this island, from its extreme antiquity, as 
Ogygia, all qualms as to the situation alluded to by 
Ausonius must for ever evaporate ! 

Let us now glance at the institutions of this island, 
the personal appearance of its inhabitants, and their 
popular customs, as compared with ancient Persia. 

To begin with the aspect, which often proves de- 
cisive in more i?iteresting applications, I refer you to 
our regal figures at page 330, as a fair outline of 
Irish contour ; with this, if you will compare what 
Captain Head affirms, in reference to the settlers at 
Bombay, viz., that f the ancient inhabitants of Persia 
were superior, not inferior, in looks, to the present, 

* Euseb. Praepar. Evang. 1. ii. 4. 

+ Tiuvra%ou %\ xai o\v6(W'ffO(iLO(>(Qov Offt^o; MyuXftct %axvvouo'iv 1 i^o^ha^ov ra aXioiu, 
o*iu. to ybvi/Aov xa.) to rgitpif&ov. — Plut. de Isid. et Osirid. 

+ See page 265. 

§ De facie in orbe lunse. Slatyr, also, an English poet, in his " Pale 
Albeone," calls our island Ogygia. Rhodoganus explains the propriety 
of the word when he says, " Ogygium appellant poeta3 tanquam per- 
vatis dixeres." 




438 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

who belong to a hundred mixed races, which have 
poured upon that kingdom since the overthrow of 
Yezdijerd," no disparity will present itself, at least in 
that quarter. 

As to institutions, I will instance that of our ancient 
clans*, and place by them in juxtaposition what Sir 
John Malcolm delivers on the subject of Persia. 
" Jemsheed" (a prince of the Pish-de-danaan dynasty, 
founder of Persepolis, called after him, Tucht-e-jem- 
sheed, which, in Irish, signifies the Couch-of- Jem- 
sheed) divided," says he, " according to Persian 
authors, his subjects into four classes. The first was 
formed of learned and pious men, devoted to the wor- 
ship of God ; and the duty ascribed to them was to 
make known to others what was lawful and what other- 
wise. The second were writers, whose employment 
was to keep the records and accounts of the state. The 
third soldiers, who were directed to occupy themselves 
in military exercises, that they might be fitted for war. 
The fourth class were artificers, husbandmen, and 
tradesmen. The authorities on which we give the 
history of Jemsheed make no mention of Mah-abad ; 
but, if we are to give credit to the Dabistan, the in- 
stitution of Jemsheed can only be deemed a revival of that 
lawgiver f ." 

* The original, in fact, of the Feodal System. 

f An act of daring impiety (not requiring to be added) disgusted 
Jemsheed' s subjects, and encouraged the Syrian prince, Zohauk, to in- 
vade Persia. The unfortunate Jemsheed fled before a conqueror, who 
was deemed by all, the instrument of divine vengeance. The wander- 
ings of the exiled monarch are wrought into a tale, which is among the 
most popular in Persian romance. His first adventure was in the 
neighbouring province of Seistan, where the only daughter of the ruling 
prince was led, by a prophecy of her nurse, to fall in love with him, and 
to contract a secret marriage ; but the unfortunate Jemsheed was pur- 
sued through Seistan, India, and China, by the agents of the implacable 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 439 

In respect to religion, Herodotus states that, "from 
his oicn knowledge, the Persians had neither statues, 
temples, nor altars, but offered on the tops of the 
highest mountains, sacrifices to Jove, by which they 
meant the deity of the air ; that they adored the sun, 
moon, earth, fire, water, and the winds, but that they 
sacrificed to these only from of old, according to an- 
cient custom, and that they gave the preference to 
Trefoil, whereon they laid their offerings *." 

Now, two considerations are to be observed, as in- 
volved in this last quotation : one is, that the historian 
attributes the usages of this nation to two distinct 
periods of time. From ocular inspection, he avows 
that they had no temples, Sec, because such were long 
exploded. And he knew not what to make of the Round 
Towers. Part, however, of the ceremonial appertain- 
ing to those edifices still remained, such as the wor- 
ship of the sun, moon, earth, fire, water, and the 
winds ; and • " to these," he frankly acknowledges, 
" they sacrificed only from of old" or in deference to 
the practice of their predecessors — I will not say 
forefathers. 

Contemplate now the reverence shown to the herb 
Trefoil, our national shamrock, and will you not see 
another link of that great concatenation uniting the 
two Irans, and triumphing at once over supposition 
and over scepticism ? I have already deplumed St. 
Patrick of the serpent expulsion ; or, rather, I have 
done honour to his memory, by saving it from the 

Zohauk, by whom he was at last seized, and carried before his cruel 
enemy, like a common malefactor. Here his miseries closed ; for after 
enduring all that proud scorn could inflict upon fallen greatness, he was 
placed between two boards, and sawn asunder with a bone of a fish.— 
Sir John Malcolm. 
* Clio, chap. 130. 



440 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

fabrications of pious impostors. I now continue my 
course of justice, by showing that he had as little to 
do with the veneration paid to this plant. It was 
worshipped in the Emerald Island, and imported, you 
perceive, by the Tuath-de-danaans, centuries upon 
centuries before the apostle was born : and the cause 
of this devotion was, not alone that it symbolized 
the Trinity, which was an article of Budhist doctrine, 
even before the incarnation of Christ, but because 
that it blended with it, in mystery as well as in grati- 
tude, the Alibenistic cross, the seal of their redemp- 
tion, and their passport to eternity ! Here then are 
the shamrocks, or Free-masonic devices, upon the crowns 
of our Irish kings explained ; and those upon the 
Persian crowns, by and by to be inserted, are simi- 
larly expounded* ! 

Lastly, the funerals of the Persians— after the soul's 
liberation from its tenement of clay, at the summons 
of its God — are described by Herodotus f with so 
striking a similitude, that you would imagine he had 
witnessed, and expressly referred to, the like scenes 
in Ireland J. 

■ 

* " Now these heathens in India, believe that an atonement has been 
made for their sins,'' says Dr. Hurd, in his " Religious Rites and Cere- 
monies/' Had the Doctor, or whoever he was that assumed his name, 
known that this was their reliance upon the expiation " of the Lamb 
slain from the beginning of the world," he would have spared his 
heathens, and spoken less irreverently. 

f Clio, chap. 193. 

% Cambrensis, in the twelfth century, says, the Irish then musically 
expressed their griefs ; that is, they applied the musical art, in which 
they excelled all others, to the ordinary celebration of funeral obsequies, 
by dividing the mourners into two bodies, each alternately singing their 
part, and the whole, at times, joining in full chorus. 

" The body of the deceased, dressed in grave clothes, and ornamented 
with flowers, was placed on a bier, or some elevated spot. The relations 
and keeners (singing mourners) then ranged themselves in two divisions, 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 441 

Oh ! " if the human mind can ever flatter itself 
with having been successful in discovering the truth, 
it is when many facts, and these facts of different 
kinds, unite in producing the same result*." 

In truth, the island was. altogether an Oriental 
Asylum^, until, for a moment, broken in upon by the 

one at the head, and the other at the foot of the corpse. The bards and 
croteries had before prepared the funeral caoinan. The chief bard of 
the head chorus began by singing the first stanza in a low doleful tone, 
which was softly accompanied by the harp : at the conclusion, the foot 
semichorus began the lamentation, or ullaloo, from the final note of the 
preceding stanza, in which they were answered by the head semichorus ; 
then both united in one general chorus. The chorus of the first stanza 
being ended, the chief bard of the foot semichorus began the second gol, 
or lamentation, in which they were answered by that of the head, and as 
before, both united in the full chorus. Thus, alternately, were the song 
and the choruses performed during the night. The genealogy, rank, 
possessions, the virtues and vices of the dead were rehearsed, and a 
number of interrogations were addressed to the deceased : as, Why did 
he die ? *If married, whether his wife was faithful to him, his sons duti- 
ful, or good hunters or warriors ? If a woman, whether her daughters 
were fair or chaste ? If a young man, whether he had been crossed in 
love? or if the blue-eyed maids of Erin had treated him with scorn ?" — 
Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. iv. note 9. 

* Baillie. 

t A particular anecdote in the Persian history has such claims upon 
the feelings, and is otherwise so interesting, as being, in fact, the eluci- 
dation of the origin and era of the Tyrrhenians, Etrurians, or Tuscans, 
in Italy, that I am forced to transcribe it here at full length. 

" Feridoon was the son of Ablen, an immediate descendant of Taha- 
murs. He had escaped, in almost a miraculous manner, from Zohauk, 
when that prince had seized and murdered his father. At the age of 
sixteen he joined Kawah, who had collected a large body of his country- 
men : these fought with enthusiasm under the standard of the black- 
smith's apron, which continually reminded them of the just cause of 
their revolt ; and the presence of their young prince made them invin- 
cible. Zohauk, after numerous defeats, was made prisoner, and put to 
a slow and painful death, as some punishment for his great crimes. 

" Feridoon's first act was to convert the celebrated apron into the 
royal standard of Persia. As such, it was richly ornamented with 
jewels, to which every king, from Feridoon to the last of the Pehlivi 
monarchs, added. It was called the Derush-e-Kawanee, the standard 
of Kawa, and continued to be the royal standard of Persia, till the Ma- 



442 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



Fir-Bolgs, or Celts. Their usurpation, however, was 
only that of a day, amounting, by all records, but to 



hometan conquest, when it was taken in battle by Saad-e-Wukass, and 
sent to the Caliph Omar. 

'■ A Persian poet, alluding to the victories which the youthful Feri- 
doon obtained over Zohauk, and to those enchantments by which the 
latter was guarded, and the manner in which they were overcome by his 
virtuous antagonist, beautifully exclaims, ' The happy Feridoon was not 
an angel ; he was not formed of musk or of amber ; it was by his justice 
and mercy that he gained good and great ends. Be then just and merci- 
ful, and thou shalt be a Feridoon.' 

" The crimes of his elder sons, which embittered the latter years of 
Feridoon, have given rise to one of the most affecting tales in Persian 
romance ; and it is, indeed, only in that form that there remains any 
trace of these events. This virtuous monarch had, we are told, three 
sons, Selm, Toor, and Erii. The two former were by one mother, the 
daughter of Zohauk ; the latter by a princess of Persia. All these 
three princes had been united in marriage to three daughters of a king 
of Arabia. Feridoon determined to divide his wide dominions among 
them. To Selm he gave the countries comprehended in modern Tur- 
key ; to Toor, Tartary and part of China ; and to Erii, Persia. The 
princes departed for their respective governments, but the two elder 
were displeased that Persia, the fairest of lands, and the seat of royalty, 
should have been given to their junior, and they combined to effect the 
ruin of their envied brother. They first sent to their father to reproach 
him with his partiality and injustice, and to demand a revision of his 
act, threatening an immediate attack if their request was refused. The 
old king was greatly distressed ; he represented to them that his days 
were drawing to a close, and intreated that he might be allowed to 
depart in peace. Erii discovered what was passing, and resolved to go to 
his brothers and to lay his crown at then* feet, rather than continue to be 
the cause of a dissension that afflicted his father. He prevailed upon the 
old king to consent to this measure, and carried a letter from their com- 
mon parent to Selm and Toor, the purport of which was, that they 
should live together in peace. This appeal had no effect, and the unfor- 
tunate Erii was slain by his brothers, who had the hardihood to embalm 
his head, and send it to Feridoon. The old man is said to have fainted at 
the sight. When he recovered, he seized, with frantic grief, the head of 
his beloved son, and holding it in his raised hands, he called upon heaven 
to punish the base perpetrators of so unnatural and cruel a deed. ' May 
they never more,' he exclaimed, ' enjoy one bright day ! May the demon 
remorse tear their savage bosoms, till they excite compassion even in 
the wild beasts of the forest! As for me,' said the afflicted old man, ' I 
only desire from the God that gave me life, that he will continue it till a 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 443 

fifty-six years*; after which, a new army of the 
Tuath-de-danaans, driven now, not from Persia, but 
from India, by the Brahmins, laid claim to the 
sceptre to which their brethren had invited them, and 
reinstated themselves afresh in our kindred Iran. 

It is not, therefore, you perceive, our individual his- 
tory alone that is rectified by this investigation. It 
supplies a vacuum in the history of the world : which 
could not be said to have been correct, so long as there 
was nothing known on the various topics now ex- 
plained f. 

Professor MiillerJ, in a very elaborate treatise 
upon the Antiquities of the Dorians, has been pleased 

descendant shall arise from the race of Erii to avenge his death ; and 
then this head will repose with joy on any spot that is appointed to 
receive it.' 

" The daughter of Erii was married to the nephew of "Feridoon, and 
their young son, Manucheher, proved the image of his grandfather; 
this child becoming the cherished hope of the aged monarch ; and when 
the young prince attained manhood, he made every preparation to enable 
him to revenge the blood of Erii. Selm and Toor trembled as they saw 
the day of retribution approach; they sent ambassadors with rich pre- 
sents to their father, and intreated that Manucheher might be sent to 
them, that they might stand in his presence, like slaves, and wash 
away the remembrance of their crimes by tears of contrition. Feridoon 
returned their presents ; and in his reply to their message, expressed 
his indignation in glowing terms. ' Tell the merciless men,' he 
exclaimed, * that they shall never see Manucheher, but attended by 
armies, and clothed in steel.' 

" A war commenced ; and in the very first battle Toor was slain by 
the lance of Manucheher. Selm retired to a fortress, from whence he 
was drawn by a challenge from the youthful hero, who was victorious in 
this combat, and the war restored tranquillity to the empire." — Sir John 
Malcolm. 

* " Fifty-six years the Fir-Bolgs royal line were kings, and the sceptre 
they resigned to the Tuath-de-danaans." — Keating. 

t We have, as yet, no accounts of the persecution and expulsion of 
the Budhists from India ; and this circumstance, of itself, would allow 
us to infer, with great probability, that those events must have taken 
place at a very remote period of antiquity.— Asiatic Researches. 

% GSttingen University. 






444 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

to affect astonishment, through one of his notes, that 
Hecatseus should have believed in the existence of 
the Hyperboreans ! It became him, unquestionably, 
so to do, because that the proofs of their existence 
were beyond his own reach. But though their reality, 
as well as locality, have been already put beyond 
disputation, I will, to justify the exclusiveness here 
proclaimed, enter again upon the subject, and, with- 
out following in detail, show, by the reverse of his 
positions, that his whole system of mythology is 
equally erroneous. 

In this determination I will, of course, be acquitted 
of any intentional slight. Who could read Professor 
Muller's work, and not be struck with the labour and 
the ingenuity which distinguish its every page? I 
yield to no man in my respect for his abilities, but I 
weep, from my soul, that his classic care was not 
bequeathed upon some other subject, rather than be 
split upon a rock by an ignis fatims. I never saw 
such a waste of letters as his book exhibits ! I never 
saw such learned research so miserably thrown 
away ! And how could it be otherwise, his great 
object having been to make everything square to the 
reveries of the Grecians ! — taking them, as his clue, 
into a labyrinth of inextricability, through one inch 
of which neither conductor nor traveller could see 
their way ! 

Sweet pahlavi of the Hyperboreans, I will take you 
as my guide ! 

■ Nor be my thoughts 

Presumptuous counted, if amid the calm 
That soothes the vernal evening into smiles, 
I steal, impatient, from the sordid haunts 
Of strife and low ambition, to attend 
Thy sacred presence, in the sylvan shade, 
By their malignant footstep ne'er profaned *._ 

* Thomson. 



445 



H 

I Oil* 

* 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Before we descend to language, I shall collect the 
historical concordances that bear upon this investiga- 
tion. 

Beo, a poetess of Delphi, mentions in the frag- 
ment of a poem, quoted by Pausanias, that three in- 
dividuals, sons of Hyperboreans, and named Olen, 
Pagasus, and Agyeus, had founded the oracle of 
Delphi. Will it be credited that those three names 
are but representatives of three several orders of our 
Irish priests, viz., Ollam, Pagoes, and Aghois*? 

At Delos the same tradition is to be encountered, 
with but a few local alterations : such as that of 
Latona having arrived there from the Hyperboreans, 
in the form of a she wolf; Apollo and Diana, with 
the virgins Arge and Opis, following afterwards. Two 
other virgins, viz., Laodice and Hyperoche, succeeded, 
and with them five men, who were called peripherees, 
or carriers, from their bringing with them offerings 
of first fruits, wrapt in bundles of wheaten straw. 

But is this embassy altogether a fiction ? " There 
is not a fact in all antiquity," says Carte, " that made 
a greater noise in the world, was more universally 
known, or better attested by the gravest and most 
ancient authors among the Greeks, than this of the 
sacred embassies of the Hyperboreans to Delos, in 

J* Vallancey, Coll. vol. iii. p. 163. 



446 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 






times preceding, by an interval of ages, the voyages of 
the Carthaginians to the north of the Straits of Gib- 
raltar." " No argument to the contrary," says Miiller, 
" can be drawn from its not being mentioned either 
in the Iliad or Odyssey, these poems not affording 
an opportunity for its introduction : moreover, the 
Hyperboreans were spoken of in the poem of the 
Epigoni, and by Hesiod — Stephanus quotes here 
a supposed oracle of a prophetess named Asteria, that 
the inhabitants and priests of Delos came from the 
Hyperboreans." So that we are by no means de- 
pendent, as implied before, upon Diodorus Siculus, 
for the narrative. 

On this subject Herodotus says that "the suite of 
this Hyperborean embassy having been ill-treated by 
the Greeks, they took afterwards another method of 
sending their sacred presents to the temples of Apollo 
and Diana, delivering them to the nation that lay 
nearest to them on the continent of Europe, with a 
request that they might be forwarded to their next 
neighbour : and thus they were transmitted from one 
people to another, through the western regions, till 
they came to the Adriatic, and there, being put into 
the hands of the Dodoneans, the first of the Greeks 
that received them, they were conveyed thence by the 
Melian Bay, Eubcea, Carystus^ Andras, and Tenos, 
till at last they arrived at Delos." 

Could he, I ask, more geographically portray their 
route from Ireland ? 

Alceeus, in a hymn to Apollo, says that " Jupiter 
adorrted the new-born god with a golden fillet and 
lyre, and sent him, in a chariot drawn by swans, to 
Delphi, in order to introduce justice and law among 
the Greeks. Apollo, however, ordered the swans first 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 447 

to fly to the Hyperboreans. The Delphians, missing 
the god, instituted a psean and song, ranged choruses 
of young men around the tripod, and invoked him to 
come from the Hyperboreans. The god remained an 
entire year with that nation, and at the appointed 
time, when the tripods of Delphi were destined to 
sound, he ordered the swans to resume their flight. 
The return of Apollo takes place exactly in the middle 
of summer ; nightingales, swallows, and grasshoppers 
sang in honour of the god ; and even Castalia and 
Cephisus heave their waves to salute him." 
Now Mr. Bryant assures us that — 

The Celtic sages a tradition hold, 

That every drop of amber was a tear 

Shed by Apollo, when he fled from heaven, — 

For sorely did he weep, — and sorrowing passed 

Through many a doleful region, till he reached 

The sacred Hyperboreans *. 

Words could not convey a more direct delineation 
of the first arrival of the Tuath-de-danaans amongst 
us, with their mysterious worship, after their eject- 
ment from Iran, their paradise, or earthly heaven, for 
the loss of which they " sorely wept " until at length 
they found a substitute in Irin. The lyre or harp 
which they brought with them, and solely for cele- 
brating the praises of Apollo, continues still our 
national emblem ; and those swans which are said to 
have drawn his chariot formed so essential a part of 
our ceremonial, that you shall be presented by and by 
with one of his magic implements, to which they are 
still attached, as they are similarly figured upon the 
painted vases, remaining after our allied Etrurians, in 
the south of Italy. 

As to the embassy of Abaris, the direct fact is so 

* Bryant's Anal. vol. iii. 491—3. 






448 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

completely authenticated by our ancient records, 
which narrate the circumstance, with no view to 
decide an historical controversy, but with indiffer- 
ence thereto, and as in ordinary course, — that it is 
inevitable but that, when the Greeks say that this 
philosopher had gone to them from the Hyperboreans, — 
and when we produce proofs to show that a man of 
the same name had repaired on the errand alluded to, 
from our country to Greece, it is inevitable, I say, but 
that, when both statements so perfectly tally, the 
island of the Hyperboreans and that of the Hibernians 
must be one and the same. 

I shall now subjoin from General Vallancey's 
works, as he translates it from an old Irish poem, the 
authentic narrative of this our Hyperborean embassy. 

" The purport of the Tuath-de-danaans journey was in quest of know- 
ledge, 

And to seek a proper place where they should improve in Druidism. 

These holy men soon sailed to Greece. The sons of Nirned, son of 
Adhnam, 

Descendant of Baoth, from Bceotia sprung. Thence to the care of 
skilful pilots, 

This Boeotian clan, like warlike heroes, themselves committed, 

And after a dangerous voyage, the ships brought them to Loch Luar. 

Four cities of great fame, which bore great sway, 

Received our clan, in which they completed their studies. 

Spotless Taleas, Goreas, majestic Teneas and Mhuiras, 

For sieges famed, were the names of the four cities. 

Morfios and Earus-Ard, Abhras, and Lemas, well skilled in magic, 

Were the names of our Druids ; they lived in the reign of Garman the 
Happy. 

Morfios was made Fele of Falias, Earus the poet in Gone dwelt, 

Samias dwelt at Mhurias, but Abhras, the Tele-fionn, at Teneas." 

A quarrel, it should seem, ensued between them 
and the Fir-Bolgs on their return : and the Sean- 
neachees, in their incapacity to separate any two 
events of a similar character from each other, con- 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 449 

founded the differences which arose herefrom with 
the battles fought six hundred years before, between 
the ancestors of both parties, on the plains of Moye- 
tureadh ! 

At page 67 I have stated that this event took place 
about B.C. 600. And this very circumstance it was — 
I mean the lateness of the date — which rendered the 
expedition at all needful. 

The Tuath-de-danaans having been for a long time 
humiliated, and allowed but a mere nominal exist- 
ence, in a remote canton of the realm, their ritual got 
merged into that of the Druids. A corresponding 
decay had vitiated their taste for letters, while the 
Greeks, in proportion, rose in the scale. 

Pythagoras had by this time returned from his tour 
to Egypt, and the fame of his acquirements had 
reached the Tuath-de-danaans. Naturally solicitous 
to court the acquaintance of an individual who had 
derived his information from the kindred of their 
ancestors *, they had address enough to obtain leave 
from the several states of the kingdom to repair to 
Greece, on the alleged plea of returning the visit f of 



* " The first origin of the Danavas,^ says Wilford, talking of the primeval 
inhabitants of Egypt, " is as little known as that of the tribe last men- 
tioned. But they came into Egypt from the west of India, and are fre- 
quently mentioned in the Puranas, amongst the inhabitants near Cali." 

Is it not manifest that they were a colony of our Danaans ? And is 
not this still more undeniable from the circumstance of a part of Egypt 
— doubtless that wherein the Danaans resided — having been called of 
old, as you will find by the same authority, by the name of Eria 9 See 
page 68 of present volume. 

t This explains what Hecatseus records, as to the ancient attachment 
between the Hyperboreans and the Grecians — " deducing then- friend- 
ship from remote times." And the offerings which the latter are said to 
have brought to the former were precisely of that nature («»%aT») which 
comports with the spirit of our Budhist pentalogue. — See page 11 2. 

2 G 



450 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

the Argonauts to our shores many ages previously ■*, 
but actually with a view to gratify their predilections 
by philosophical inquiry. 

When the meteors met, it is difficult now to decide 
which orb it was that emitted the greater light. But 
without being too much biassed by the links of pa- 
triotism, I think we may very fairly aver that our 
countryman communicated, depressed even as was his 
order at that day. as much information as he had 
received -\. 

Who then can any longer doubt but that this was 
the island of the Hyperboreans? Even the pecu- 
liarity of our language mingles in the chain of 
proof; as Diodorus states, that " the Hyperboreans 
use their own natural tongue." But were all other 
arguments wanting, I would undertake to prove the 
identity by an admission from this transcriber him- 
self. " The sovereignty of this city," says he, " and 
the care of the temple, belong to the Boreades^." 



>> 



* As to the actuality of the visit, it is past anything like doubt, from 
Orpheus, or if you prefer Onomacretus' poem, called " Argonautica ;" and 
his conviction of this it was which made Adrianus Junius, quoted by Sir 
John Ware, to characterize Ireland as an " insula Jasonics puppis bene 
cognita nautis/' 

f Abaris ex Hyperboreis, ipse quoque theologus fuit ; scripsit oracula 
regionibus quas peragravit, qucs hodie extant ; prcedixit is quoque terrce 
motus,pestes, et similia ac ccetera. Ferunt eum cum Spartam advenisset, 
Lacones monuisse de sacris mala avertentibus, quibus peractis nulla 
postmodum Lacedcemone pestis fuerit . — Apollonius, Histor. Mirab. 
They thought them gods and not of mortal race, 
And gave them cities and adored their learning, - 
And begged them to communicate their art. 

Keating, from an old Irish poem. 
Turn back also to page 328, 67, and 66, and see what is there stated ! 
" An hundred and ninety-seven years complete 
The Tuath-de-danaans, a famous colony s 
The Irish sceptre swayed." 
% A spiritual supremacy of this kind prevailed in several cities of Asia 
Minor, as, for instance, at Pessinus, in Phrygia. The origin of such 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 493 

Now, nothing ever has puzzled etymologists so 
much to explore as the origin of the Irish term 
Bards*. The guesses which they have made thereat 
are so exceedingly amusing, that I will take leave to 
refresh myself, exhausted and languid as I now well 
nigh am, with the outline of a few. 

First, Bochart would derive it from parat, to 
speak!!! Wilford from the Sanscrit, varta!!! But 
" some learned friends of his are of opinion that it 
comes from bhardanan, to burthen ! ! ! because bur- 
thened with the internal management of the royal 
household!!!" 

I shall spare my readers any more of those carica- 
tures, and submit to his own candour to adjudicate, 
whether Bards could, by possibility, be anything else 
than the modern Englification for our ancient Bo- 
reades ? 

Doubtless, Professor Miiller, your astonishment has 
now subsided, as to Hecatseus's credulity in the exist- 
ence of the Hyperboreans. Diodorus Siculus, who, 

constitutions is uncertain ; but, according to tradition, was of very- 
ancient date. The same cities were also great resorts of commerce, 
lying on the highway from Armenia to Asia Minor. The bond between 
commerce and religion was very intimate. The festivals of their worship 
were also those of their great fairs, frequented by a multitude of foreign- 
ers; all of whom (certain classes of females not excepted), as well as 
everything which had a reference to trade, were considered as under the 
immediate protection of the temple and the divinity. The same fact 
may be remarked here, which has obtained in several parts of central 
Africa, namely, that the union of commerce with some particular mode 
of worship, gave occasion, at a very early period, to certain political 
associations, and introduced a sacerdotal government. — Heeren, vol. i. 
p. 121. 

* This word is of uncertain etymology — their early history is uncer- 
tain. Diodorus (lib. v. 31), tells us, that the Celts had bards, who sung 
to musical instruments ; and Strabo (lib. iv.) testifies, that they were 
treated with respect, approaching to veneration. The passage of Tacitus 
(Germ. 7.) is a doubtful reading. — American Encyclopaedia. 

2 g 2 



452 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

though, as Granville Penn has affirmed, he " has 
transmitted to us many scattered and important 
truths," yet does the same judicious commentator 
add, that it was in a condition " intermixed with 
much idle fiction, . equivocation, and anachronism *,'•' 
was herein your guide ! But the manes of the Hyper- 
boreans now speak from the tomb, and vindicate their 
existence as well as their locality ! 

I come now to prove this by another mode. 

Plato, in his Cratylus, represents Hermogenes as 
proposing several terms to Socrates for solution, when 
the following acknowledgment transpires : — 

u I think," sa}^s the philosopher, " that the Greeks, 
especially such of them as lived subject to the domi- 
nion of foreigners, adopted many foreign words ; so 
that, if any one should endeavour to resolve those 
words by reference to the Greek language, or to any 
other than that from which the word was received, he 
must needs be involved in error !" 

The foreign extraction then, of many of the Greek 
words being admitted, it devolves upon me to esta- 
blish this extraction to be purely Irish. 

To begin with Dodona — " In Eustathius and 
Steph. Byzantius," says Vallance}^ " we meet with 
three different conjectures in regard to the derivation 
of the name Dodona, which, they say, owes its origin 
either to a daughter of Jupiter and Europa, or one of 
the nymphs, the daughter of Oceanus ; or, lastly, to 
a river in Epirus, called Dodon. But, as Mr. Potter 
observes, we find the Greek authors all differ, both 
as to the etymology of the name and the site of this 
oracle. In my humble opinion, Homer and Hesiod 

* See Oriental Collections. 






THE ROUND TOWERS. 453 

have not only agreed that it was not in Greece, but 
in Ireland, or some island, at least, as far westward." 
The passages to which the General refers in those 
ancient poets, are — 

Ztu avcc Aabavccii YliXaffyixi Tri\iih vatav 

that is, — 

Pelasgian Jove, who far from Greece resid'st 
In cold Dodona. 

that is, — 

To Dodona he came, and the hallowed oak, the seat of the Pelasgi. 

Valuable as are those authorities, the General needed 
not to have had recourse to them at all, had he but 
been apprised of the origin of the word Dodona. 

One of the religious names of Ireland, which I 
have purposely left unexplained till now, was Tot- 
dana \. This it derived immediately from the Tuath- 
de-da?iaa?is, as indeed it did all its ancient names, with 
the exception of Scotia. Tiicdh-de-danacms I have 
shown to mean the Magic- god-almoners § and Tot- 
dana, by consequence, must denote the Magic- 
almonry ||. 

Now, the Greeks, having been initiated in all their 
religious mysteries by the Irish, did not only enrich 
their language with the vocabulary of our ceremo- 
nial, but adopted the several epithets of our island, 

* Homer's Iliad, n. v. 233. f Hesiod, apud Strabo, 1. 7. 

% See Miege's " Present State of Ireland.'' § See page 257. 

|| On the pillar at Buddall, before alluded to, are these words, viz., 
" He had a womb, but it obstinately bore him no fruit. One like him 
can have no relish for the enjoyments of life. He never was blessed 
with that giver of delight, by obtaining which a man goes to another 
Almoner." Upon which the learned translator (Sir Charles Wiggins) 
very correctly comments, that " he had no issue to perform Sradh for 
the release of his soul from the bonds of sin. (See page 113 of this 
work.) By another Almoner is meant the Deity. 



454 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

as the distinctive names for their various localities, 
so that our Muc-inis * became their Myc-ene, our Tot- 
dana their Do-dona, &c. &c. And even the names of 
our lakes, with all their legends of hydras and 
enchantments, found their way to them also, so that 
from our Lough-Erne was formed, by a crasis, their 
L-Erna. 

The change from Tot-dana to Do-dona is much 
more obvious than may seem at first sight. T 
and D being commutable, TW-dana was at once 
made Do£-dana ; the intermediate t was then left out 
for sound sake, making it Do-dana ; and, lastly, the 
penultimate a was transformed into o for the " ore 
rotundo f," completing the Grecism of Do-dona. 

You see, therefore, from this, that the origin of 
Dodona was exclusively Irish ! that Dodojia and Ire- 
land were, in fact, one and the same ! — a circum- 
stance of which Homer was perfectly well assured, 
when he styled it AwSojvv^ Zua-ysi^B^og, or the Hyper- 
borean Tot-dana\. 

Neither was it in name only, but in sanctity also, 
that the Greek Myc-ene strove to imitate our Muc- 
inis. To this hour is to be found one of the ancient 
Pelasgian temples, vulgarly termed the Treasury of 
Atreus, from the mere circumstance, as Dr. Clarke 
well remarks, u of there being found a few brass nails 
within it, and evidently for the purpose of fastening 
on something wherewith the interior surface ivas 
formerly lined, and that many a long year before 

* See page 327. 

f Graiis, ingenium Graiis : dedit ore rotundo. — Horace. 

% This is still more evident by Ins making use of the word ryXoh, that 
is, far off, meaning from Greece ! And Hesiod applies this identical 
topography to the British Islands, which he styles sacred, describing 
them as ^axu. rrike, an immeasurable distance off, towards the northern 
point of the ancient continent ! 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 455 

Atreus or Agamemnon !" The Doctor, however, was 
perfectly astray in supposing it a sepulchre ! In form 
it is a hollow cone, fifty feet in diameter, and as many 
in height, composed of enormous masses of a very 
hard breccia, a sort of pudding-stone, the very mate- 
rial whereof most of our Round Towers are con- 
structed, and the property of which is to indurate by 
time. The Dune of Domadella in Scotland is identi- 
cally the same kind of structure, built by our Tuath- 
de-danaans, and for the solemn purpose of religion 
alone. This is so accurately described in an article 
in the Edinburgh Magazine, copied into " Pennant's 
Tour," that I too will make free to transcribe it. 

" It is," says the Reviewer, (l of a circular form, 
and now nearly resembling the frustum of a cone : 
whether, when perfect, it terminated in a point, I 
cannot pretend to guess : but it seems to have been 
higher, by the rubbish which lies round it. It is 
built of stone, without cement, and I take it to be 
between twenty and thirty feet still. The entrance 
is by a low and narrow door, to pass through which, 
one is obliged to stoop much ; but perhaps the ground 
may have been raised since the first erection. When 
one is got in, and placed in the centre, it is open 
overhead. All round the sides of the walls are ranged 
stone shelves, one above another, like a circular beau- 
fait, reaching from near the bottom to the top. The 
stones which compose these shelves are supported 
chiefly by the stones which form the walls, and which 
project all round, just in that place where the shelves 
are, and in no others : each of the shelves is sepa- 
rated into several divisions, as in a bookcase. There 
are some remains of an awkward staircase. What 
use the shelves could be applied to I cannot conceive. 
It could not be of any military use, from its situation 



456 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

at the bottom of a sloping hill, which wholly com- 
mands it. The most learned amongst the inhabitants, 
such as the gentry and clergy, who all speak the Irish 
language, could give no information or tradition con- 
cerning its use, or the origin of its name." 

Now, our Round Towers have similar shelves, or 
recesses in the wall, and " reaching, like a circular 
beaufait, from near the bottom to the top !" Where- 
ever these do not appear, their place is supplied 
by projecting stones, for the evident purpose of act- 
ing as supporters % And as the Mycenian, the Cale- 
donian, and the Hibernian edifices thus far correspond, 
the only thing that remains is to explain to what pur- 
pose could those recesses serve. 

I thus solve the question — They were as so many 
cupboards for containing the idols of Budha, as the 
structures themselves for temples of his worship, &c. 
Nor is this, their use, yet forgotten, in the buildings 
of the like description in Upper India, as appears 
from the following statement by Archer. " In the 
afternoon," says he, " I went to look at a Jain 
temple. It was a neat building, with an upper story. 
The idol is Boadh. There is a lattice verandah of brick 
and mortar round the shrine, and there are small 
cupboards, in which numerous figures of the idol are 
ranged on shelves." 

Arguments crowd upon me to establish these par- 
ticulars ; the only difficulty is in the compression. I 
shall, however, continue to prove this from another 
source, even by showing that when Ezekiel declared, 
in allusion to Tyre, that " the men of Dedan were 
thy merchants f," he meant the men of Ireland. 

First, let me refer you to page 4, by which you 
■ 

* Seepage 71. t Chapter xvii. 15. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 457 

will be reminded of our ancient possession of a naval 
equipment. Secondly^ let me quote to you an extract 
from Vallancey. when directing* the result to a different 
application. His words are — u Another proof of the 
ancient Irish being' skilled in the art of navigation, I 
draw from a fragment of the Brehon laws in my pos- 
session, where the payment, or the reward, for the 
education of children, whilst under the care of fos- 
terers, is thus stipulated to be paid to the ollamhs, 
or professors, distinguishing private tuition from that 
of public schools. The law says, ' If youth be 
instructed in the knowledge of cattle, the payment 
shall be three eneaclann and a seventh ; if in hus- 
bandry and farming, three eneaclann and three- 
sevenths ; if in milrach, i. e. glais-argneadh as tear, 
that is, superior navigation, or the best kind of 
knowledge, the payment shall be five eneaclann and 
the fifth of an eanmaide; if in glais-argneadhistein, 
that is, second, or inferior (branch of) navigation, two 
eneaclann and a seventh.' And this law is ordained, 
because the pupils must have been previously in- 
structed in letters, which is the lowest education 
of all." 

Thus you see, at all events, that we were qualified 
for the duties required. Now, I will demonstrate, and 
that too by the aid, or rather at the expense, of Mons. 
Heeren, that we were the actual persons pointed to 
by the prophet. 

'' Deden," says the professor, " is one of the 
Bahrein, or rather more northerly one of Cathema. 
The proofs, which to detail here would be out of 
place, may be found in Assemani, Bib. Orient., torn, ii., 
par. ii., p. 160, 564, 604, and 744. Difficulties arise 
here, not merely from want of maps, but also from the 
variation and confusion of names. Daden, or Deden, 



458 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

is also frequently called Dirin ; and it may be con- 
jectured, that from hence arose the name of Dehroon, 
which is given to one of the Bahrein islands in the 
map of Delisle. If that were the case, then Dedan 
would not be Cathema, as Assemani asserts, but the 
island mentioned above ; and this is rendered pro- 
bable by the resemblance of names, which is a certain 
guide." 

If the " resemblance of names" be " a certain 
guide," identity of names must be still more certain ; 
and then must my proofs already prevail, and the 
Professor's conjectures fall to the ground ! Surely, he 
cannot say that there is any even resemblance between 
D-Irin and Dehroon! But he admits, that the place 
alluded to is called indifferently Dedan * and D-Irin ; 
and have I not shown that each of those names, iden- 
tical and unadulterated, belonged properly to Ire- 
land ? Ireland, therefore, alone can be the country 
alluded to by the inspired penman. 

In denying, however, a Dodona to the Greeks, and 
an oracle also, General Vallancey was quite incor- 
rect. What he should have maintained was, that 
both name and oracle had their prototypes in Ireland : 
but that, so remote was the date at which the transfer 
occurred, all insight into the mysteries had long since 
perished. 

Indeed, their priests very frankly acknowledged 
the fact to Herodotus, when, in his thirst for informa- 
tion, he waited upon them at Dodona — " We do 
not," said they, " know even the names of the deities 
to whom we make our offerings — we distinguish 
them, it is true, by titles and designations ; but these 

* For Dedan see last two pages; and for D-Irin, see page 128. 
The prefixing of D to the last word arose from confounding it with the 
former name ; and thus it was embodied with it, as seen before in L-Erne. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 459 

are all adventitious and modern in comparison of the 
worship, which is of great antiquity." Upon which 
the historian very truly concludes, " that their nature 
and origin had been always a secret ; and that even the 
Pelasgi, who first introduced them and their rites, 
had been equally unacquainted with their history." 

Like a true Greek, however, he must set about 
coining an origin for them : and so he tells us a coclc- 
and-a-bull story of two pigeons (Peleiai) having taken 
flight from Thebes in Upper Egypt, and never stopped 
until they perched, one upon the top of Dodona, 
and the other God knows where ; and then he flatters 
himself he has the allegory solved, by imagining that 
those pigeons were priestesses, or old women, carried 
off by Phoenician pirates, and sold into the land of 
Greece! 

In this he has been followed by thousands of 
imitators, and quoted miraculously at all the public 
schools. Nay, his disciples would fain even improve 
upon the thing ; and Servius has gone so far as to say 
that the old woman s name was Pelias ! 

Now, here is the whole mystery unravelled for 
you. 

When the Greeks established an oracle of their 
Dodona, subordinate to our master one, they adopted, 
at the same time, one of the orders of our priesthood. 
This was that of the Pheeleas, the meaning of which 
being to them an enigma, they bent it, as usual, to 
some similar sound in their own language*. This 
was that of Peleiai, in the accusative Peleias, which, 
in the dialect of Attica, signifies pigeons, and in that 

* Or as the Rev. Caesar Otway would say, in a similar embarrass- 
ment, — " I will give (i. e. invent) you a motto and a motive for it," — 
Ha, ha, ha!— See Dublin Penny Journal, July 8, 1832. 



460 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 




of Epirus, old women; and so the whole metamor- 
phosis was forthwith adjusted ! 



btaow on 












XJ 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 461 

" The very extraordinary piece of antiquity, repre- 
sented in the annexed wood-cut, was found," says 
Mr. Petrie, " in a bog' at Ballymoney, county of 
Antrim, and exhibited to the Royal Irish Academy, 
by the Lord Bishop of Down, in March, 1829. Its 
material is that description of bronze of which all 
the ancient Irish weapons, &c, are composed, and its 
actual size is four times that of the representation. 
It is a tube, divided by joints at A and B into three 
parts, which, on separating, were found to contain 
brass wire, in a zigzag 1 form, a piece of which is 
represented in fig. G. This wire appears to have 
been originally elastic, but when found was in a state 
of considerable decomposition. At E and F are two 
holes, about one-eighth of an inch in diameter, and 
seem intended for rivets or pins, to hold the instru- 
ment together. The birds move on loose pins, which 
pass through the tube, and on the other end are 
rings. The material and style of workmanship of 
this singular instrument leave no doubt of its high 
antiquity. But we confess ourselves totally unable to 
form even a rational conjecture as to its probable use, 
and should feel obliged to any antiquary who would 
throw light upon it # ." 

Had the antiquarian high-priest to this magnani- 
mous assemblage been equally modest in former cases, 
and courted instruction, instead of erecting himself 
into a Pheelea, he would not cut the figure which 
he now does. Ignorance is no fault : it is only its 
vagaries that are so ridiculous ! 

However, he has said — I beg pardon, he is in the 
plural number — well then they have said, that they 

* Dublin Penny Journal, April 6, 1833. 




462 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

would feel obliged to any antiquary who would throw 
light upon the subject." 

To be sure, I am no antiquary. The Royal Irish 
Academy have made that as clear as the sun at noon- 
day. Nay, they have even strove to make their 
brethren at this side of the water to think so also ! — 
But their brethren at this side of the water are too 
honest a people, and too noble in their purpose, to make 
history a trade, and to stifle truth at the unhallowed 
dictates of interest or partiality. 

No matter ; I will tell all what this piece of anti- 
quity was. It was the actual instrument through 
which the oracle of Dodona was announced ! You see 
upon it the swa?is by which Apollo was brought to 
the Hyperboreans ! The bulbul of Iran also attends 
in the train ; and the affinity of this latter bird to the 
species of 'pigeons, convinced the Greeks that they had 
really hit off the interpretation of the word Pheelea! 
and that pigeons were, in truth, the deliverers of the 
oracle. 

This was the block upon which Abbe Bannier was 
stumbling. Having learned from some quarter, 1 be- 
lieve from Aristotle, that there were some brass ap- 
pendages contiguous to Dodona, he converts those 
appendages into kettles — a worthy friend of mine 
would add, offish — " which," says he, (i being lashed 
with a whip, clattered against one another until the 
oracle fulminated ! ! !" 

As to those oracles themselves, with the registries 
of which antiquity is so replete, I will here articulate 
my individual belief. No one who knows me can sup- 
pose that I am superstitious ; and, for those who know 
me not, the sentiments herein delivered will scarcely 
foster the imputation. Yet am I as thoroughly per- 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 4G3 

suaded as I am of my personal consciousness, that 
some prescience they did possess, conducted partly 
by human fraud, and partly by spiritual co-opera- 
tion *. 

There is no question but that there must have been 
some supernatural agency in the business ; for human 
skill and human sagacity could never penetrate the 
deep intricacies of doubt, and the important preg- 
nancies of time which they have foreshown f. 

Porphyry, in his book " De Dsemonibus " and 
Iamblichus in his " De Mysteriis," expressly men- 
tion that demons were in every case the authors of 
oracles. Without going all this length we may 
readily allow that they had perhaps a great share in 
them ; neither will the ambiguity, in which their 
answers were sometimes couched, detract anything 
from this admission, because the spirits themselves, 
when ignorant of any contingency, would, of course, 
try to skreen their defect by the vagueness of con- 
jectures, in order that if the issue did not correspond 
with their advice, it may be supposed owing to mis- 
interpretation. The instance of Croesus and the Del- 
phian oracle was an interesting event. He sent to all 
the oracles on the same day this question for solution, 

* Elementorum omnium spiritus, utpote perennium corporum motu 
semper, et ubique vigens, ex his quse per disciplinas varias affectamus, 
participat nobiscum munera divinandi, et substantiates potestates ritu 
diversa placatee, velut ex perpetuis fontium venis vaticina mortalitati 
suppeditant verba. — Ammianus Marcellinus, lib. 21. 

" They then took wives, each choosing for himself; whom they began 
to approach, and with whom they cohabited ; teaching them sorcery, in- 
cantations, and the dividing of roots and trees." — Book of Enoch. 

I have collected fifty words in the Irish language relating to augury 
and divination : every one of them are oriental, expressing the mode of 
producing these abominable arts ; they are, in fact, the very identical 
oriental words written in Irish characters. — Vallancey. 



464 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

viz., " What is Croesus, the son of Alyattes, king of 
Lydia, now doing?" That of Delphi answered thus : 
" I know the number of the sand of Libya, the measure 
of the ocean — the secrets of the silent and dumb lie 
open to me- — I smell the odor' of a lamb and tortoise 
boiling together in a brazen cauldron; brass is under 
and brass above the flesh" 

Having heard this reply, Croesus adored the god of 
Delphi, and owned the oracle had spoken truth; for 
he was on that day employed in boiling together a lamb 
and a tortoise, in a cauldron of brass, which had a 
cover of the same metal. He next sent, enjoining his 
ambassadors to inquire whether he should undertake 
a war against the Persians ? The oracle returned 
answer, a If Croesus passes the Halys, he will put an 
end to a vast empire." 

Not failing to interpret this as favourable to his 
project, he again sent to inquire, " If he should long 
enjoy the kingdom ?" The answer was, " That he 
should till a mule reigned over the Medes." Deeming 
this impossible, he concluded that he and his posterity 
should hold the kingdom for ever. But the oracle 
afterwards declared that by il a mule" was meant 
Cyrus, whose parents were of different nations — his 
father a Persian, and mother a Mede. By which 
mule, says a facetious writer, the good man Croesus 
was thus made an ass ! 

That the priests, however, used much deception in 
the business, and that this deception did not escape 
the notice of the learned men of the time, is evident 
from the charge which Demosthenes had brought 
against the Pythia, of her being accustomed to Philip- 
pise, or conform her notes to the tune of the Mace- 
donian emperor. The knowledge of this circumstance 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 

made the prudent at all times distrust their sugges- 
tions, whilst the rabble, without gainsay, acquiesced 
as blindly in the belief of their infallibility. 

But it was not only as to the meaning of the word 
Pheelea that the Greeks w r ere unapprized, they knew 
not the import of their own name Pelargi* ! It is 
compounded of this same term pheelea, an augur or a 
diviner; and argh, the symbolical boat, or yoni ! And, 
mind you, that this was the great difference between 
the Pelargi — which is but another name for Pish-de- 
danaans — and the Tuath-de-danaans, that the latter 
venerated the male organ of energy, and the former 
the female; therefore in no country occupied by the 
former do you meet with Routid Towers, though 
you invariably encounter those traces of art, which 
prove their descent from one common origin. 

As presiding over the diviners of the symbolical 
boat, Jupiter was called Pelargicus f. 

Agyeus was another term in their religious vocabu- 
lary, as applied to Apollo, of which the Greeks knew 
not the source. They could not, indeed, well mis- 
take, that it was derived immediately from ayuia, via ; 
but that did not expound the fact, and they were still 
in ignorance of its proper import. It is merely a 
translation of our Budk-a-vohir, that is, Apollo- of -the 
high-roads, not, what the Greeks understood it, as 
stationary thereon, but, on the contrary, as itinerant ; 

* Danaus, the sire of fifty daughters, leaving those fruitful regions 
watered by the Nile, came to Argos, and through Greece, ordained that 
those who erst were called Pelasgi, should by the name of Danai be 
distinguished.— Euripides. 

f You will find in Bruce, the Abyssinian travellers writings, that 
those boats are still called, in that country, arghs, as they were in ours, 
and the people who man them are styled Phut, corresponding to our 
Fo-morians. 

2 ii 



466 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



and to whom Venus the stranger corresponded on the 
other side ; the especial province of both being to 
ensure the comforts of hospitality, of protection, and of 
love, to all emigrants and all travellers. 

Grunie was another epithet applied to Apollo, as 
we may read in a hymn composed by Orpheus, which 
they could not comprehend.- — It is derived from Grian, 
one of our names for the Sun. 

But, beyond comparison, the most inexplicable of 
all the epithets applied to this divinity is Jjycceus ; 
which, though — as has been the case, you perceive, in 
every subject yet discussed — it can be explained only in 
the Irish ! — yet, even there, it opposes some difficul- 
ties to discourage., but not more than what give way 
to sagacity and to perseverance. 

At Glendalough, in the county Wicklow, one of 
the proudest abodes of Budhism, are found, amongst 
other sculptures, upon the dilapidated ruins, those 
which you see opposite. 

The wolf is the most frequent in the multitude of 
those hieroglyphics. His character is exhibited in 
more attitudes than one — and all mysteriously signi- 
ficant of natural designs. 

In one place you observe his tail gracefully inter- 
woven with the long hair of a young man's head. 
That represents the youth Apollo, controlling by his 
efficacy, — alias, the sun's genial rays — the most 
hardened hearts, and so revolutionising the tendency 
of the inborn system, as from antipathy often to 
produce affection and love! 

Of this illustration, the practical proof is afforded 
in " Bakewell's Travels in the Tarentaise," to the 
following purpose, viz. — 

" By way of enlivening the description of the 



THE HOU-VD TOWERS. 



4G7 



Figl 




2 h 2 



468 



THE ROU^D TOWERS. 



structure of animals, he (M. de Candolle, Lecturer 
on Natural History at Geneva) introduced many inte- 
resting particulars respecting what he called leur 
morale, or their natural dispositions, and the changes 
they underwent when under the dominion of man. 
Among other instances of the affection which wolves 
had sometimes shown to their masters, he mentioned 
one which took place in the vicinity of Geneva. A 

lady, Madame M , had a tame wolf, which 

seemed to have as much attachment to its mistress as 
a spaniel. She had occasion to leave home for some 
weeks ; the wolf evinced the greatest distress after 
her departure, and at first refused to take food. Dur- 
ing the whole time she was absent, he remained much 
dejected : on her return, as soon as the animal heard 
her footsteps, he bounded into the room in an ecstacy 
of delight ; springing up, he placed one paw on each 
of her shoulders, but the next moment he fell back- 
wards, and instantly expired." 

Elsewhere you discern two wolves unmercifully 
tearing at a human head ! And this is symbolical of 
a species of disease, of which there is published an 
account, in a work, called " The Hospitall of In- 
curable Fooles," translated from the Italian by Todd, 
to the following effect, viz. : — 

" Amongst these humours of Melancholy, the po- 
sitions place a kinde of madnes, by the Greeks called 
hycanthropia, termed by the Latines Insania Lupina, 
or Wolves furie : which bringeth a man to this point, 
(as Attomare affirmeth) that in Februarie he will goe 
out of the house in the night like a wolfe, hunting 
about the graves of the dead with great howling : 
and plitcke the dead mens bones oat of the sepulchres, 
carrying them about the streets, to the great feare and 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 469 

astonishment of all them that meete him : And the 
foresaide author affirmeth, that melancholike persons 
of this kinde have pale faces, soaked and hollow eies, 
with a weak sight, never shedding one tear to the 
view of the world, &c." 

And that this was epidemic amongst the Irish is 
proved by Spenser's testimony, when, drawing a 
parallel between the Scythians and the Irish of his 
day, he says — " Also, the Scythians said, that they 
were once a year turned into wolves ; and so it is 
written of the Irish : though Martin Camden, in a 
better sense, doth suppose it was a disease, called 
lycanthropia, so named of the wolf: and yet some of 
the Irish doe use to make the wolf their gossip." 

Thus it appears, that the Irish were not only 
acquainted with the nature of this sickness, but also 
with the knack of taming that animal of which it bore 
the name. All this was connected with the worship 
of Apollo, and with eastern mythology. Nay, the 
very dogs, for which our country was once famous *, 
and which were destined as protectors against the 
ravages of the wolf, are clear, from Ctesias, to have 
had their correspondents in India. 

The epithet Lyceus, I conceive, now elucidated ; 
and so leave to yourself to penetrate the rest of those 
devices. But I shall not, at the same time, take leave 
of the " Valley of the Two Lakes f." 

On one of the loose stones, which remain after 

* "I thank you,'' says Symmachus to his brother Flavianus, "for the 
present you made me of some Irish dogs (canes Scotici), which were there 
exhibited at the Circensian Games, to the great astonishment of the 
people, who could not judge it possible to bring them to Rome otherwise 
than in iron cages." 

f This is the meaning of thename Glen-da-lough, and a faithful por- 
raiture it is of the situation. 



470 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



this wreck of magnificence, you will see a full deli- 
neation of " The history of Dahamsonda, King of 
Baranes {modern Benares), who, as his name implies, 
was a zealous lover of religious knowledge : and was 
incarnated, in order to be tried between his attachment 
to religion and his zeal for the solvation of the world 
on the one side, and his love to his own life, and his 
attachment to his kingdom and wealth, as well as his 
kindred and friends, on the other ; for which purpose 
the gods had gradually and completely withdrawn the 
light of religious knowledge from the world by the 
time of his accession to the throne *." 

This king, in his anxiety to regain the lost condi- 
tion of mankind— to recover their literature and their 
ancient knowledge of religion, instructs his courtiers 
to proclaim the offer of a casket of gold, " as a 
reward to any person" who would instruct his majesty 
in the mysteries of the Bana If, that is, the Budhist 
Gospel, with a view to its salutary re-propagation. 

The officers proceeded in quest of such a pheno- 
menon ; but, in the extent of their own realms he was 
not to be found ! 

This excites the uneasiness of the king, who " hav- 
ing by degrees increased his offers to thousands and 
millions of money, high titles, possessions of land 
and great privileges ; and, at last, offering his own 
throne and kingdom, but still finding no instructor, 
leaves his court, resolved to become a private traveller, 
and not to rest till he has found one who could commu- 
nicate to him the desired knowledge. Having/br a length 
of time travelled through many kingdoms, towns, and vil- 



iO?7£T 



* Miniature of Budhism. 

f " The secret, it was lost, but surely it was found." — Freemason 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 471 

lages, enduring hardships, he is, at last, by providen- 
tial interference, led through a delightful valley (which 
affords him subjects for consideration and recreation 
of mind) into a dismal forest, the habitation of fright- 
ful demons, venomous reptiles, and beasts of prey. 

" Sekkraia having on the occasion come down 
from heaven, in the disguise of a Raksha, meets Bod- 
hesat (the king) in the wilderness, who fearlessly 
enters into conversation with him, and informs him of 
the object of his wanderings. The disguised deity 
undertaking to satisfy the king, if he will sacrifice to 
him his flesh and blood in exchange for the sacred 
knowledge, Bodhesat cheerfully ascends a steep rock, 
shown him by the apparition, and throws himself 
headlong to the mouth of the Raksha. The king's 
zeal being thus proved, Sekkraia, in his own hea- 
venly form, receives him in his arms, as he is preci- 
pitating himself from the rock," and has him initiated 
in the desired information*. 

Now, waiving for a moment the latter part of this 
legend, — every word of which, however, is still chro- 
nicled in our country, though transferred by the 
moderns to St. Kevin and the monks, — I return to add, 
that, on the above-mentioned stone, you will see a 
representation of the ambassadors offering this caske 
of riches to a professor of letters seated in his " doctor's 
chair ! ! /'' 

This stone itself is engraved in " Ledwich's An- 
tiquities," where in his ignorance of its meaning, as 
well as of everything else which formed the subject 

* This account is found in Satdharmalankare, a very popular Bhud- 
dist book, being a collection of histories, &c, from the writings of the 
Rahats, in which the original Paly (Pahlavi) texts are preserved with 
the Singhalese. — Miniature of Budhism. 



472 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

of his libellous farrago, he perverts it into the bribing 
of a Roman Catholic priest ! — as if the priests would 
so emblazon themselves ! — and quotes Chaucer to 
prove the fact, when he says of one of them, that — 

" He would suffer, for a quart of wine, 
A good fellow to have his concubine I" 

How inconsistent is error ! Elsewhere this Re- 
verend Doctor has asserted, and, accidentally, with 
truth, that there was no such thing at all to be met 
with at this place, as " Christian symbols." I wonder 
was he one of those who consider Roman Catholics not 
to be Christians? 

However, again from this he diverges ! And, when 
called upon to decipher the hieroglyphics upon a stone- 
roofed Tuath-de-danaan chapel, of the same character 
as that at Knochnoy, and discovered here a few years 
ago, beneath the Christian piles which the early mis- 
sionaries had built over it, by way of supersedence, he 
throws himself, in his embarrassment, into the arms of 
St. Kevin ! associates him with the whole ! and that, 
too, after he had fatigued himself, until half choked 
with spleen, in bellowing out the ideality and utter non- 
existence of such a personage ! 

On the front of the cathedral erected out of the 
fragments of the Tuath-de-danaan dilapidations, you 
will find Budha embracing the sacred tree, known in 
our registries, by the name of Aithair Faodha, which 
signifies literally the tree of Budha * . 

* Buddu, the god of souls, is represented by several little images made 
of silver, brass, stone, or white clay, and these are set up in almost every 
corner, even in caverns and on rocks, to all which piles, the devotees 
carry a variety of provisions, every new and full moon throughout the 
year ; but it is in March they celebrate the grand festival of Buddu, at 
which time they imagine the new year begins. At this festival they go 
to worship in two different places, which have been made famous by 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 473 

The pomegranate of Astarte — the medicinal apple 
of affection* — presents itself, also, in the foliage! 
The mouldings upon the arch of the western window 
refer likewise to her. And, to complete the union of 
Sabian symbolization, the serpent mingles in the 
general tale ! while the traditional story of the adjoin- 
ing lake having been infested by the presence of that 
reptile, has a faithful parallel in one of the lakes of 
Syria ! 

Will it not be believed, therefore, that the valley 
at which Dohamsonda had alighted, after he had tra- 
versed many realms far away from his own, was that 
of Glendalough ? And where, I ask, would he be 
more likely to obtain the object of his peregri- 
nation, viz., initiation into gospel truth, than in that 
country which, from its pre-eminent effulgence in its 

their legendary stories concerning them. One of them is the highest 
mountain in the island, and called hy the Christians Adam's Peak ; the 
other is in a place where Buddu reposed himself under a tree, which 
planted itself there for the more commodious reception of the deity, who, 
when he was on earth, frequently amused himself under its agreeable 
shade, and under that tree the pagans in Ceylon adore their Buddu, 
whom they really believe to be a god. — Dr. Httrd. 

Bodhesat receives a few handfuls of grass presented to him by Soithia, 
(a Brahmin,) which grass, when strewed on the ground under the Bo 
tree, there arise from the earth miraculously a throne of diamond, four- 
teen cubits high, covered externally with grass ; on which Bodhesat 
takes his seat, reclining his back against the tree, in order to accomplish 
his last act of meditations. Buddha having ascended into the air, and 
displayed his glory to all the worlds in rays of six different colours, in 
order to afford the gods a proof of his perfection, stands seven days with 
his eyes fixed on the Bo tree, enjoying the Dhyanes. — Miniature, &c. 
* " Yes, love indeed is light from heaven, 
A spark of that immortal fire, 

With angels shared, by Alia given, 
To lift from earth our low desire. 

Devotion wafts the mind above, 

But heaven itself descends in love, 

A feeling from the godhead caught, 

To wean from self each sordid thought." — Byron. 



474 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



beatitudes, was exclusively denominated the Gospel- 
land ? 

This, Sir, is no rhetoric — no declamatory exaggera- 
tion. I will reduce it for you, in its simple elements, 
to the perspicuity of vision. 

Bana-ba is one of the names of our sacred island, 
which, like all the rest of our history, has been here- 
tofore a mystery to literary inquirers ! 

The light bursts upon you! — does it not already? 
Need I proceed to separate for you the constituent 
parts of this word ? 

It is compounded then, be it known, of Bana, which 
indicates good tidings, or gospel, and aba, land — 
meaning, in the aggregate, the Gospel-land! And 
accordingly the pilgrim, when he set out upon his 
journey in quest of the Bana, very naturally, betook 
himself to Bana-ba, or the land of the Bana, where 
alone it was to be found ! 

And you presume to say that Christianity is a thing 
which only commenced last week ? 



" Great God ! I'd rather be 
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn ; 
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, 
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn ; 
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea ; 
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."- — Wordsworth. 



/ •) 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

• They shall be astonished, and shall humble their 
countenances : and trouble shall seize them, when 
they shall behold the Son of Woman sitting upon the 
throne of his glory. Then shall the kings, the 
princes, and all who possess the earth glorify him 
who has dominion over all things — him who was con- 
cealed: for, from the beginning, the Son of Man 
existed in secret, whom the Most High preserved in 
the presence of his power, and revealed to the 
elect*." 

So speaks one of the most extraordinary produc- 
tions that has ever appeared in England, in the shape 
of literature ! And the commentary of its translator f 
is as follows : — 

" In both these passages," says he, " the pre-exist- 
ence of the Messiah is asserted in language which 
admits not the slightest shade of ambiguity — nor is 
it such a pre-existence as the philosophical cabalists 
attributed to him, who believed the souls of all men, 
and, consequently, that of the Messiah, to have been 
originally created together, when the world itself was 
formed ; but an existence antecedent to all creation, an 
existence previous to the formation of the luminaries 
of heaven ; an existence prior to all things visible 

* Book of Enoch, lxi. 8—10. 
-* Dr. Lawrence, present Archbishop of Cashel. 



476 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

and invisible, before everything concealed. — It should 
likewise be remarked, that the pre-existence ascribed 
to him is a divine pre-existence *." 

As to the pre-existence of the Messiah, in the only 
way in which the Archbishop affirms, I did not think 
that the doctrine was so obscure as to require so 
much stress ! Every body acquiesces, who acquies- 
ces in Christianity — that its Founder had existence 
and dominion with his Father before all worlds. 
And, therefore, when his Grace offers this as an 
illustration of our opening extract, he either uncon- 
sciously contradicts himself, or, else, by dealing in 
generalities, evades an exposition, which he was not at 
liberty to communicate ! 

I am quite ignorant as to whether or not Dr; 
Lawrence belongs to the order of Free-masons, but 
I confess, that when first I glanced at the above re- 
marks, I fancied he did. The care with which the 
two words " secret" and " concealed" were distin- 
guished by him in italics, led me to this conjecture. 
But the indefinite unsubstantiality into which he after- 
ward wandered, made the fact of his initiation become, 
itself, a secret. 

Let me, however, prove the above dilemma. 

His Lordship has asserted, that the uni?ispiration 
of " the author" will admit of no dispute f: and yet 

* Preface to Translation of the Book of Enoch. 

t " If this singular book he censured as abounding in some parts 
with fable and fiction, still should we recollect that fable and fiction may, 
occasionally, prove both amusing and instructive ; and can then only be 
deemed injurious when pressed into the service of vice and infidelity. 
Nor should we forget that much, perhaps most, of what we censure, was 
grounded upon a rational tradition, the antiquity of which alone, inde- 
pendent of other considerations, had rendered it respectable. That the 
author was uninspired will be scarcely now questioned. But, although 
his production was apocryphal, it ought not therefore to be necessarily 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 477 

that " author,"' whom the Archbishop himself acknow- 
ledges to have written, at the very lowest, antecedently 
to the Advent, speaks of the Messiah as the " Son of 
Man," and the " Son of Woman*" 

Either, therefore, the author was inspired, speaking 
prospectively of an occurrence not then consummated ! 
or else, uninspired, he historically transmits the record 
of an incarnation vouchsafed before his time. 

I feel perfectly indifferent as to which horn of this 
alternative you may patronise. They both equally 
make for me. Nor do I want either, otherwise than 
to show, that else the Archbishop is already of my 
way of thinking, and restrained from avowing it} or 
unwillingly involved in a contradictory nodus, from a 
partial succumbing to education ! 

With this I leave Enoch ! I have hitherto done 
without him ! I shall continue still to do so ! But 
while bidding adieu, I must disburthen myself of the 

stigmatized as necessarily replete with error ; although it be on that 
account incapable of becoming a rule of faith, it may nevertheless con- 
tain much moral as well as religious truth, and may be justly regarded 
as a correct standard of the doctrine of the times in which it was com- 
posed. Non omnia esse concedenda aniiquitati, is, it is true, a maxim 
founded upon reason and experience ; but, in perusing the present relic 
of a remote age and country, should the reader discover much to eon- 
demn, still, unless he be too fastidious, he will find more to approve ; if 
he sometimes frown, he may oftener smile ; nor seldom will he be dis- 
posed to admire the vivid imagination of a writer, who transp orts him far 
beyond the flaming boundaries of the world — 

, < Extra 

Processit longe flammantia moenia mundi ;' 
displaying to him every secret of creation ; the splendours of heaven, 
and the terrors of hell ; the mansions of departed souls, and the 
myriads of the celestial hosts, the seraphim, cherubim, and ophanim, 
which surround the blazing throne, and magnify the holy name of the 
great Lord of Spirits, the Almighty Father of men and of angels. 1 '— 
Archbishop of Cashel. 
* See page 475. 



478 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

sentiments which his merits have inspired, and that 
after a very short personal familiarity. 

Thou art then, a goodly and a wise book, Enoch, 
stored with many and recondite truths, but " few 
they be who find'" them. Better for thee it were, 
however, that thou hadst slept a little longer in thy 
tranquil retirement, than obtrude thyself, unappre- 
ciated, upon an ungenial world; — a cold, a calculating, 
an adamantine world — who fancy they know every- 
thing, but who, in truth, know nothing — to meet with 
nothing but their scorn ! It is true, Enoch, that thy 
face hath been tarnished by many a blemish ! And 
that the hand of time hath dealt with thee, as it doth 
with the other works of man! Yet, despite of the cur- 
tailments thus sustained, and the exotics incorporated, 
thy magnificent ruin still holds within it some gleams, 
which to the initiated and the sympathetic afford delight 
and gratification. 

" Sweet as the ecstatic bliss 



Of souls that by intelligence converse !" 

Doubtless, reader, you are acquainted with the 
Gospel of St. John ? — and you have a heart 1 — and 
you have emotions ?— and you have sensibilities? — 
and you have intellect ? Well, then, tell me frankly, 
have not these all been brought into requisition, at 
the metaphysical sublimity and the oriental pathos of 
the opening part of that production ? 

a He was in th'e world, and the world was made 
by him ; and the world knew him not. — He came unto 
his owji, and his own received him not *." 

You surely cannot suppose this said in reference to 
the late incarnation ! Were it so, why should the 

* John i. 10-11. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 479 

Evangelist deliver himself in terms so pointedly allu- 
sive to distant times ? The interval between Christ's 
disappearance and St. John's registration was but as 
yesterday, and, therefore, the latter, when inculcating 
the divinity of the former, upon the belief of his 
countrymen, who were all cotemporaries, as w T ell of 
one as of the other, need not advertise them of an 
addition, of which they were themselves cognisant. 

But to illustrate to you as light, that it was not the 
recent manifestation that was meant by the above 
texts, he tells us in the sequel, when expressly nar- 
rating this latter fact, that " the logos was made flesh 
and dwelt among us*" Where you perceive that 
" dwelling among us" is made a distinct thing from, and 
posterior in eventuaiion to " coming unto his own" as 
before recorded *[• f 

Indeed, in the delineation, it is not only the order 
of time, but the precision of ivords, that we see most 
rigidly characteristic. The Jews, it is certain, could 
not be called " his own" except by adoption ; and, I 
am free to allow, that from them, " as concerning the 
fiesh, Christ came ;" but by " his own" are meant his 
real relations ! — emanations from the Godhead, such as 
he was himself I beings altogether separate from flesh 
and blood ! and whose mysteriousness was perceptible 
most clearly to St. John, as you will perceive by the 
Greek words from which this is rendered, viz., ra 
iSta, having been put in the neuter gender ! 

But suppose them, for an instant, to have been the 
Jews ! — Then we are told that, " to as many as 
received him, gave he power to become sons of 
God \." Now, the apostles were they who did impli- 

* John i. 14. t Page 478. 

% John i. 12. 



480 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



citly receive him : and why does not St. John refer to 
those, whether living or dead, as admitted to the 
privilege of becoming "sons of God?" I will tell 
you : — it was because that they did not answer to 
that order of beings " which were born not of blood, 
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but 
of God *." 

These were the persons to whom Christ came before 
— these were " his own," because that, like him, they 
also were of God f. These were they, who having 
lapsed into sin |, and vitiated their nature, drew down 
the vengeance of heaven upon them — and to the 
descendants of these it was that " the elect" and " the 
concealed one," in mercy was made manifest, with 
proposals of redemption to regain their lost state !! ! 

Oh ! the depth of the riches both of the wisdom 
and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his 
judgments, and how inscrutable his ways§! 

Seest thou not now, therefore, the propriety of 
St. John's expression, when he says, " and I knew 
him not, but that he should be made manifest to 
Israel || ;" for when before " he was in the world," it 
was in secret and concealed, — as still and always repre- 
sented in the mysteries ! The latter, he asserts, as a 
matter of revelation — for the former he appeals to the 
experience of his auditors, as a subject of history: and 
both epochs are confirmed by the u voice from heaven,'' 
which replied to Christ's own prayer, as thus, " I 
have both glorified it,'' viz., at thy former manifestation 
— and will glorify it again %" at this thy present !!! 

I was myself twelve years of age before ever I 



* John i. 13- 
% Seepage 243. 
|| John i. 31. 



f See page 242. 

§ Romans xi. 33. 

IT John xii. 28. 



THE ROUXD TOW Kits. 4*1 

saw a Testament in any language. The first I was 
then introduced to was the Greek. Beino- in favour 
with my tutor, he took an interest in my progress, 
and the consequence was, to my gratitude and his 
praise, that no deviation from the exactness of gram- 
matical technicality could possibly escape my obser- 
vation. Soon as I arrived at the text wherein ra <S/a 
occurs, its irregularity, at once, flashed across my 
mind. I sought for an explanation, but it was in 
vain ; my imagination set to work, but it was equally 
abortive. At length, in despair, I relinquished the 
pursuit, and never again troubled myself with it, or 
its solution, until recalled by its connexion with the 
present inquiry. 

But it was not alone the peculiarity of gender that 
excited my circumspection, the phraseology, when 
translated, sounded so familiar to my ear, as to 
appear an old acquaintance under a new form. For, 
though I could then tolerably well express myself in 
English, the train of my reflections always ran in 
Irish. From infancy I spoke that tongue : it was to 
me vernacular. I thought in Irish, — I understood 
in Irish, — and I compared in Irish. My sentiments 
and my conceptions were filtrated therein ! 

As to dialectal idioms or lingual peculiarities, I 
had not, of course, the most remote idea. Whether, 
therefore, the expression 'coming to " his own" 
were properly a Greek or an English elocution, I 
did not, then, know either sufficiently well to deter- 
mine ; but that it was Irish I was perfectly satisfied ; 
my ear and my heart, at once, told me so. 

I now positively affirm, that the phrase is neither 
Hebrew, Greek, nor English! And if you are not dis- 

2 i 



482 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



posed to admit the information which it conveys*, 
to be an immediate communication from the Omni- 
potent, I have another very adequate mode of account- 
ing for St. John's having acquired it, and expressed 
it too in a phraseology so essentially oriental n 

The three wise men — who came from the East to 




* Viz., the secret of an Antediluvian Incarnation. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 483 

Jerusalem, saying-, " Where is he that is born King 
of the Jews ? for we have seen his star in the east, 
and are come to worship him *" — to a mortal certainty 
imparted to him the intelligence ! 

Here you see them with crosses upon their crowns f, 
the religious counterparts of our Irish shamrocs\ ! 
And surely, as Jesus was then but an infant, those 
mysterious devices were commemorative of his cruci- 
fixion, when " he came to his own," — and not to 
that which occurred while he " dwelt among us," a 
catastrophe which had not yet. taken place ! 

Nor is it alone this single phrase (ra <8<a) that I 
claim as oriental — the five first verses of this Gospel, 
as at present arranged, appertain also thereto. They 
speak the doctrine alike of the Budhists and of the 
Free-masons ; but in diction, and in peculiarity, in tone, 
in point, and essence, they are irrefragably Irish^. 

That St. John never wrote them is beyond all 
question ! but having found them to his hand, exist- 
ing after the circuit of centuries and ages, the com- 
position seemed so pure, and so consonant with 
Christianity, nay, its very vitality and soul, he 
adopted it as the preface to his own production, 
which begins only at the sixth verse, opening with, 
" There was a man sent from God whose name was 
John!" 

Having asserted that the preliminary part was 
inalienably Irish, I now undertake to prove a radical 
misconception, nay, a derogation from the majesty of 

* Matthew ii. 1, 2. 

f This wood-cut is copied from one of the early hlock-books. 
\ See page 440. 

$ I need not repeat to the reader, that by Irish I mean the primitive 
Persic, indiscriminately common as well to Iran as to Irin. 

2 i2 



484 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



the Messiah, to have crept into the text, in conse- 
quence of its having been translated by persons unac- 
quainted with that language ! 

The term, logos, which you render word, means to 
an iota the spiritual flame — log, or logh, being the 
original denomination. The Greeks, who had bor- 
rowed all their religion from the Irish, adopted this 
also from their vocabulary ; but its form not being 
suited to the genius of their language, they fashioned 
it thereto by adding the termination os, as loghos ; 
and thus did it become identified in sound with the 
common logos, which they had before, and which 
merely expresses a word or term ! 

But though thus confounded, their philosophers, for 
a long time, kept both expressions distinct. The 
former they ever considered a foreign importation, 
rendering it, as we did, by the spiritual flame ; as 
is evident from Zeno making use of the expression, 
hioi too TroLVTog hoyog, that is, the spiritual flame, which 
is diffused through, and vivifies everything. 

Pythagoras is so explicit upon this spiritual flame, 
that you would swear he was paraphrasing the first 
five verses of St. John. 

" God," says he, u is neither the object of sense, 
nor subject to passion, but invisible, only intelligible, 
and supremely intelligent. In his body, he is like 
the light, and in his soul he resembles truth. He is 
the universal spirit that pervades and diffuseth itself 
over all nature. All beings receive their life from 
him. There is but one only God, who is not, as 
some are apt to imagine, seated above the world, 
beyond the orb of the universe ; but being himself all 
in all, he sees all the beings that fill his immensity, 
the only principle, the light of Heaven, the Father of 



THE HOUND TOWERS. 485 

all. He produces everything^ he orders and disposes 
evert/thing ; he is the reason, the life, and the motion 
of all hems'." 

Even the Latins having borrowed the idea from 
the Greeks, steered clear of the equivocation of the 
ridiculous word; and the immortal Maro, when de- 
scribing the quickening influence of this ethereal 
logos through all the branches of nature, interprets it 
as above, literally, by the spiritual flame ! 

Principio ccelum ac terras, camposque liqucntes, 
Lucentemque globum Luna?, Titaniaque Astra, 
Spiritus intus alit ; totamque infusa per artus 
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet. 
Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vitseque volantum, 
Et qua; marmoreo fert monstra sub sequore pontus*. 

Am J, therefore, presumptuous in appealing to 
the community to reject this word as applied to the 
logos. A meaning, it is true, has been trumped up 
for this, as the communicating vehicle between God 
and his creatures ! No doubt, the Saviour is all that : 
but logos does not express it ; and the duration of an 
abuse is no reason why it should be perpetuated after 
its exposure. 

I have said, that it degraded the dignity of the 
Godhead to render this expression by the form of 
ivord. I do not retract the charge : on the contrary 
I add that, independently altogether of the former 
arguments, adduced to establish its inaccuracy, it 
it would be 7'evolling to common sense, were it not 
even thus incorrect ! 

For example — " In him was life," says the text, 
" and the life was the light of men." 

Now, how could there be life in a word? except 
by the most unnatural straining of metaphor. Or, ad- 

* Virgil's .ZEnuid, vi. 724. 



486 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



\ 



mitting that there was life, how could there be light, 
except by the same? Whereas, by substituting the 
proper term, then all is regular and easy ; for what 
could be more natural, than that there should be life 
in spirit ? and that this life should give light to men ? 

You will observe accordingly, that Jesus himself, 
when describing his own character, exactly states 
what I here rectify, saying, " I am the light of 
the world" — not the word of the world — or any such 
nonsense. And he continues the idea by noting 
further, that " he that followeth me shall not walk in 
darkness, but shall have the light of life *." Thus 
keeping up an uninterrupted reference to logos, or the 
spiritual flame f 

I do, therefore, humbly, but strenuously, implore 
of the legislature, that they restore this epithet to its 
divine interpretation ! I entreat of the heads, as well 
of church as of state, that they cancel the error ; for 
error I unhesitatingly pronounce it to be, — a dero- 
gation from the Godhead— and a perversion of the 
attributes of the Messiah ! 

I will myself show the way — thus : " In the 
beginning was the spiritual flame : and the spiritual 
flame was with God, and the spiritual flame was God f .*' 

How beautiful ! may I hope that it will never more 
be extinguished ! 

Now, there is another text in the same chapter, 
which, though not incorrectly translated, yet loses half 
its beauty, as at present understood ! It will startle 
you when I recite it ! Yet here it comes. " Behold ! 
the lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the 
world \Y' 

* John viii. 12. f John i. 1. 

t John i. 29. — See also page 315 of this volume. 



THE HOUND TOW'EUv 4&7 

By lamb, no doubt, you mean a young' sheep : but 
let me ask you, what connexion can you perceive 
between a young sheep and the taking away of sin ? 
That of immolation, you answer, as typifying the 
grand offering. Well then, why add " of God V 
Why say, the young sheep of God, if it was an ordi- 
nary animal of the mere ovine species that was in- 
tended ? 

No, Sir, recollect the " Lamb slain from the be- 
ginning of the world," recorded in the Revelations, as 
quoted before *. 

A deep mystery is involved in this expression, 
which the ingenuity of man could not evolve but 
through the Irish. In that language, lambh is a word 
having three significations. The first is a hand ; the 
second a young sheep ; and the third a cross f. 

Let us now, in rendering the text, substitute this 
latter instead of the intermediate ; and it will be, 
" Behold the cross of God which taketh away the sin 
of the world !" By which you perceive that when 
John the Baptist, by inspiration, pointed out Jesus 
Christ as the universal Saviour of the world, his very 
words establish a previous crucifixion! 

You now see how it happened that ten, in nume- 
rals, came to be represented by a cross X. This being 
■the number of fingers upon each person's hands : and a 
hand and a cross being both prefigured in the sacred, 



* See page 288. 

$ In the Tartar language, which is a dialect of the Irish, it still re- 
tains this latter import, as appears from the following :— " Ce qu'il y a 
de remarquahle, c'est que le grand pretre des Tartares port le nom de 
lama, qui en langue Tartare signifie la croix ; et les Bogdoi qui con- 
quirent la Chine en 1644, et qui sont soumis au delae-lama dans les 
choses de la religion, ont toujours des croix sur eux, qu'ils appellent aussi 
lamas"— Voyage de la Chine, par Avril, lib. iii. p. 194. 



488 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

that is, in the Irish language *, by the same term, 
lambh, it hence occurred that in all reckoning and 
notation, a new score should be commenced therefrom 
— that its sanctity should be still further enhanced, by 
the epithet of diag, or perfection, which characterizes 
it as a sub-multiple, and that the mysteriousness of the 
whole should be additionally shrouded under the com- 
prehensive symbol of a pyramid or triangle a f. 

" Our Hibernian Druids/' says Vallancey, " always 
wore a key, like the doctors of law of the Jews, to 
show they alone had the key of the sciences, that is, 
that they alone could communicate the knowledge of 
the doctrine they preached. The name of this key 
was hire, or cire ; and eo, a peg or pin, being com- 
pounded with it, forms the modern eo-cire, the key of 
a lock. The figure of this key resembled a cross ; 
those of the Lacedaemonians and Egyptians were of 
the same form." 

Estimable and revered Vallancey, it pains me to 
say anything against you ! but on those subjects you 
were quite at bay! It was not " to show that they 
alone had the key of the sciences," that " the doctors 
of law of the Jews always wore a key," but because 
that they had seen it in the ceremonial of the Egyptians, 
from whom, like the Lacedeemonians, they had bor- 
rowed its use, without either of them being able to 
penetrate its import \ ! 

The origin, then, of this badge appearing amongst 

;..* The words Irish and sacred are synonymous. — See page 129. 

f See pages 267, 268, and 269. 

% " The peculiar office of the Irumarcalim it is difficult to find out," 
says Lewis, " only it is agreed that they carried the keys of the seven 
gates of the court, and one could not open them without the rest. Some 
add, that there were seven rooms at the seven gates, where the holy 
vessels were kept, and these seven men kept the keys, and had the 
charge of them." — Origines Hebreece, vol. i. p. 97. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 489 

the habiliments of our ancient priests, is developed by 
the name which those priests themselves bore, viz., 
Luanih, which, being but a direct formative from 
lambh, a cross, unlocks the secret of their being its 
ministers *. 

The Idwi-Dactyli, who superintended the mysteries 
of Ceres, obtained their designation from the very same 
cause, and corresponded literally with our Luamhs : 
for the loci of the Chaldeans being equivalent to the 
lambh or hand of the Irish, the number of fingers 
thereon were made religiously significant of the X, 
or cross ! And, — what cannot fail to excite astonish- 
ment, as to the immutability of a nation's character, — to 
this very hour, the symbolical oath of the Irish peasant 
is a transverse placing of the fore-finger of one hand 
over that of the other, and then uttering the words, 
" By the cross /" 

Are not the opposers of my truths, then, as yet 
satisfied ? or will they still persist in saying that it 
was the Pope that sent over our Tuath-de-danaan 
crosses f? in the ship Argho ! some thousands of 
years before ever Pope was born. I wonder was it 
his Holiness that transported emissaries also to that 
ancient city in America, lately discovered in ruins, 
near Palenque ; amongst, the sculptures of which we 
discover a cross ! And the priority of which to the 
times of Christianity is borne witness to by the gentle- 
man who has published the " Description" of those 
ruins \, though glaringly ignorant as to what was com- 
memorated thereby. 

" Upon one point, however," he says, " it is deemed 
essentially necessary to lay a stress, which is the 

* See page 438, with the note thereon also. 

t See Dublin Penny Journal, Nov. 10, 1833. 

% Published by Berthoud, 65, Regent's Quadrant, Piccadilly. 



490 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

representation of a Greek cross, in the largest plate illus- 
trative of the present work, from whence the casual 
observer might be prompted to infer that the Palen- 
cian city nourished at a period subsequent to the 
Christian era ; whereas it is perfectly well known to all 
those conversant with the mythology of the ancients, 
that the figure of a cross constituted the leading sym- 
bol of their religious worship : for instance, the augu- 
ral staff or wand of the' Romans was an exact re- 
semblance of a cross, being borne as the ensign of 
authority by the community of the augurs of Rome, 
where they were held in such high veneration that, 
although guilty of flagrant crimes, they could not be 
deposed from their offices ; and with the Egyptians the 
staff of Bootes or Osiris, is similar to the crosier of 
Catholic bishops, which terminated at the top with a 
cross." 

But if the Pope had so great a taste for beautifying 
our valleys with those costly specimens of art, whereof 
some are at least eighteen feet in height, composed 
of a single stone, and chiselled into devices of the 
most elaborate mysteries, is it not marvellous that he 
has not, in the plenitude of his piety, thought proper 
to adorn the neighbourhood of the Holy See with any 
similar trophies? And why has he not preserved in 
the archives of the Vatican any record of the bequest, 
as he has taken care to do in the case of the four palls ? 

But, transcendently and lastly, why did he deem it 
necessary to depict centaurs upon those crosses, with 
snakes, serpents, dogs and other animals, such as this 
following one exhibits, which is that at Kells, and 
which has been alluded to, by promise, some pages 
backwards*. 

* See page 361. At Monasterboice there are three very beautiful 



THE HOUND TOWERS. 



491 




^^pf^ 



I have now done with the appropriation of those 
columns ; and shall just whisper into my adversaries' 
ears — if they have but recovered from the downcrash of 
their fabric — that so far from laying claim to the honour 
of their erection, the Pope has actually excommuni- 
cated all such as revered them ! and has otherwise 
disowned all participation therein, by the fulminating 
of bulls and of anathemas * ! 

specimens of those Tuath-de-danaan crosses still remaining, and covered, 
as usual, with hieroglyphic sculpture. " The pillars in the Palencian 
eity," I find, " are also decorated with serpents, lizards, &c." 
* See Borlase, p. 162. 



492 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Yet did the zealots of party, after the history of 
those crosses was forgotten, associate them individu- 
ally with some favourite saint ! " This notion," says 
Mosheim, referring to such diversions, " rendered it 
necessary to multiply prodigiously their number, and 
to create daily new ones. The clergy set their in- 
vention at work, and peopled at discretion the in- 
visible world with imaginary protectors ; they invented 
the names and histories of saints that never existed ; 
many chose their own patrons, either phantoms of 
their own creation or distracted fanatics whom they 
sainted." 

Here, however, the historian is as inaccurate as he 
is severe : for not only did the majority of those saints, 
if not all of them, exist, but the greater part also of 
those exploits, ascribed to them, have actually occurred ! 
The imposition consisted in making them the heroes of 
events and legends belonging to former actors *. 

I shall now give you, from the book of Ballymote,, 
my proof for the assertion before advanced as to the 
Goban Saer, whom they would fain appropriate, hav- 
ing been a member of the Tuath-de-danaans, viz., 
" Ro gabsat sartain in Eirin Tuatha Dadann is deb 
ro badar na prem ealadhnaigh : Luchtand saer credne 
ceard : Dian ceachd liargh etan dan a hingeinsidhe : 
buime na filedh Goibneadh Gobha lug Mac Eithe Oc- 
cai ; ro badar na huile dana Daghadae in Righ : 
oghma brathair in Righ, is e ar arainic litri no Scot." 
That is, The Tuath-de-danaans then ruled in Eirin. 
They were first in all sciences. Credne Ceard was of 

* See page 36. I must not omit to mention that the Tuath-de-danaan 
cross at Armagh, noticed at page 359, was pulled down some time 
back, to prevent the squabbles between the Catholics and the Orange- 
men, neither of whom had any inheritance therein ! 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 493 

this people; and his daughter Dean Ceaehd, who 
presided over physic : she nursed the poet Gohne 
Gobha, the Free-mason (lug is the same as Sae?') son 
of Occai Esthne. Daghdae the king was skilled in 
all sciences : his brother Ogmus taught the Scythiam 
the use of letters. 

Thus you see that he could not, by possibility, be 
on the same theatre with St. Abham ; while the po- 
pular tradition is still substantially true which con- 
nects his name with the erection of the Round 
Towers ! 

The church festivals themselves, in our Christian 
calendar, are but the direct transfers from the Tuath- 
de-danaan ritual. Their very names in Irish are 
identically the same as those by which they were 
distinguished by that earlier race. If, therefore, sur- 
prise has heretofore been excited at the conformity 
observable between our church institutions and those 
of the East, let it in future subside at the explicit 
announcement that Christianity, with us, was but the 
revival of a religion, imported amongst us, many ages 
before, by the Tuath-de-danaans from the East, and 
not from any chimerical inundation of Greek mission- 
aries — a revival upon which their hearts were long- 
ingly riveted, and which Fiech himself, the pupil of 
St. Patrick, and bishop of Sletty, unconsciously re- 
gisters in the following couplet, viz. — 



That is, 



" Tuatha Heren, tarcaintais 
Dos nicfead sith laithaith nua*." 

" The Budhists of Irin prophesied 
That new times of peace would come." 



What kind of peace, you ask ? Is it of deliverance 

* Vita prima S. Patricii, Ap. Colgan. 



494 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

from their Scythian oppressors ? No, but that spiri- 
tual tranquillity, such as they enjoyed before, and at 
which even the angels of heaven rejoiced, while an- 
nouncing the tidings to man *. 

" And sweet, and with rapture o'erflowing, 

Was the song from that multitude heard. 
Who their heav'n for a season foregoing, 

To second the Angel appear'd. 
' All glory,' the anthem resounding, 

{ To God in the highest,' began ; 
And the chant was re-echoed, responding, 

' Peace on earth, loving kindness to man f .' ' 

You will remember that the Scriptures themselves 
record, how that the wise men of the East foresaw 
this epoch ; and " Lo, the star, which they saw in the 
east, went before them, till it came and stood over 
where the young child was£.'' 

Is it therefore to be wondered at that our Tuath- 
de-danaans, who were their brethren, should equally 
anticipate it? 

Yes, from the commencement of time, and through 
all the changes of humanity, God had always wit- 
nesses to the truth in this nether world. 

" And Melchizedec, king of Salem, brought forth 
bread and wine ; and he was the priest of the most 
high God. 

" And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram 
of the most high God, possessor of heaven and 
earth : 

" And blessed be the most high God, which hath 

* " Fear not : for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which 
shall be to all people. For unto yon is born this day, in the city of David, 
a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord." — Luke ii. 10, 11. 

f " And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly 
host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth 
peace, good will towards men." — Luke ii. 13, 14. 

t Matthew ii. 9. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 495 

delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave 
him tithes of all*. 

" Now consider how great this man was, unto whom 
even the patriarch Abraham gave the tenth of the 
spoils. 

" For this Melchizedec, king of Salem, priest of the 
most high God, who met Abraham returning from 
the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him ; 

" To whom also Abraham gave a tenth part of all : 
first being, by interpretation, king of righteousness, 
and after that also king of Salem, which is king of 
peace. 

u Without father, without mother, without descent, 
having neither beginning of days nor end of life ; but 
made like unto the Son of God — abideth a priest con- 
tinually f." 

Thus does the apostle proceed, in a strain of the 
closest argumentation, to point out the superiority of 
this king of peace, over Abraham and his lineage : 
after which Mr. Brown, in his Commentary upon the 
Bible, expresses himself as follows, viz. — " Who this 
Melchizedec was, this priest of God among the Ca- 
naanites, greater than Abraham, the friend of God, 
who were his parents or his successors, is on purpose 
concealed by the Holy Ghost. And hence he is with- 
out father or mother, predecessor or successor, in his 
historical account, in order that he might typify the 
incomprehensible dignity, the amazing pedigree and 
unchangeable duration of Jesus Christ, our great 
High Priest." 

* Genesis xiv. 18, 19, 20. 

t Hebrews vii. 4, 1, 2, 3. Rex idem hominurn, Phoebique Sacer- 
dos. — Virgil. 



496 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Nobody can quarrel with the piety of this com- 
mentator : but piety is not the only requisite for a 
commentator upon the Scriptures ; the absence of 
stupidity is an essential condition. It is not, however, 
as applied to this particular passage that I thus express 
myself: were this the only instance of accommodating 
oversight it should draw forth no critique from me. 
But the instances are innumerable, to verify the ex- 
pression that " some persons see but perceive not." 

Mr. Brown had no idea of an emanation! Mr. 
Brown did not comprehend the sons of God! Mr. 
Brown did not know the connection which existed 
between the peace of Christ and that which was re- 
presented by Melchizedec *; 

" How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet 
of him that bringeth good tidings, that publisheth 
peace; that bringeth good tidings of good, that 
publisheth salvation ; that saith unto Zion, Thy God 
reigneth -j\" 

" These things have I spoken unto you, that in me 
ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have 
tribulation : but be of good cheer ; I have overcome 
the world J." 

" If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this 
thy day, the things which belong unto thy peace ! but 
now they are hid from thine eyes §." 

" Peace I leave with you ; my peace I give unto 
you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you||." 

* Holy mysteries must be studied with this caution, that the mind 
for its module be dilated to the amplitude of the mysteries, and not the 
mysteries be straitened and girt into the narrow compass of the mind. — 
Bacon. 

t Isaiah lii. 7. % John xvi. 33. 

§ Luke xix. 42. || John xiv. 27. 



TIIL ROUND TOWERS. 4U7 

" Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, 
both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that 
within the veil ;" 

* Whither the forerunner is for us entered, even 
Jesus, made an high priest for ever after the order of 
Melchisedec*." 

From our fathers to us the good tidings descend, 

From us to our children agen ; 
Unrestrain'd as the sun, and as lasting, they blend 

All the nations and ages of men. 
Good news of great, joy to all people, they speak 

At once to the learn' d and the rude, 
To barbarian and Scythian, the Jew and the Greek, 

Nor country nor person exclude. 

From the man who goes forth to his labour by day, 

To the woman his help-meet at home ; 
From the child that delights in his infantine play, 

To the old on the brink of the tomb ; 
From the bridal companions, the youth and the maid, 

To the train on the death-pomp that wait ; 
From the rich in fine linen and purple array'd, 

To the beggar that lies at his gate : 

To all is the ensign of blessedness shown, 

To the dwellers in vale or on hill, 
Alike to the monarch who sits on his throne, 

And the bond-man who toils at the mill : 
High and low, rich and poor, young and old, one and all, 

Earth's sojourners, dead and alive, 
Who perish'd by Adam our forefather's fall, 

Shall in Jesus the Saviour revive. 

Not an ear, that those tidings of welfare can meet, 

But to it doth that welfare belong : 
Then those tidings with rapture what ear shall not greet, 

What tongue shall not echo the song ? 
All hail to the Saviour ! all hail to the Lord ! 

God and man in one person combined ! 
The Fathers Anointed ! by Angels adored ! 

The Hope and Delight of mankind t ! 

* Hebrews vi. 19, 20. t Christmas Carols. 



'1 K 



498 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 



Yet once I was blind, and could, not see the light, 
And. straight to Jerusalem I then took my flight ; 
They led. me through a wilderness, with a multitude of care, 
You may know me by the system, or badge I wear. 

Twelve dazzling lights I saw, which did me surprise ; 
I stood in amaze where I heard a great noise ; 
A serpent came by me, — I fell unto the ground, 
With joy, peace, and comfort the secret I found *. 

The principle of all mysteries having been already 
elucidated, it only remains, that, in this concluding 
chapter, I point out a few more instances of their 
practical application. 

In the Gospel, then, according to St. Matthew, I 
find the words, " generation of vipers, who hath 
warned you to flee from the wrath to comcf ?" — And 
in that according to St. John, the following, " We be 
not born of fornication ; we have one Father, even 
God J." 

The juxtaposition of these texts, one with another, 
and the comparison of them, mutually, with the 
explication of the serpent, given at page 229, will not 
only confirm the truth of all the foregoing develop- 
ments, but satisfy you farther, what I am very cer- 
tain you did not before identify, viz., that the phrases 
generation of vipers, and the being born of fornica- 
tion, are one and the same — the viper, or serpent, 

* Freemasons' song. 



t Matthew iii. 7. 



:i: John vii. 41. 



THE ROUND TOM'ERS. 4 { J ( J 

being the symbol of lustf illness, making the former 
equivalent to ye offspring of concupiscence ; that is, in 
other words, ye bom of fornication * ! And the very 
stress laid upon this mode of geniture, implies not 
only the possibility of a different sort, but its fre- 
quency, also ! 

" In the Purana prophecies concerning the ex- 
pected Saviour," say the Asiatic Researches, (l it is 
said, that he was the son, or rather the incarnation, 
of the great serpent : and his mother was also of 
that tribe, and incarnate in the house of a pot-maker. 
She conceived at the age of one year and a half, the 
great serpent gliding over her while she was asleep 
in the cradle : and his mother, accordingly, is repre- 
sented as saying to the child, once that she brought 
him to a place full of serpents — ' Go, and play with 
them, they are your relations' " 

Here it will be seen that, under the form of a 
serpent, is personified the Deity, or the generative 
power. 

Nunez de la Vega, Bishop of Chiapa, in Mexico, 
when describing Nagualism, in his " Constitutions," 
as observed in that country, says, " The Nagualists 
practise it by superstitious calendars, wherein are 
inserted the proper names of all the Naguals, of 
stars, the elements, birds, beasts, fishes, and reptiles ; 
with observations upon the months and days; in 
order that the children, as soon as they are born, may 
be dedicated to that which, in the calendar, corre- 
sponds with the day of their birth : this is preceded 
by some frantic ceremonies, and the express consent 
of parents, which is an explicit part between the 
infants and the Naguals that are to be given to 

* See page 229. 



-500 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

them. They then appoint the melpa, or place, where, 
after the completion of seven years, they are brought 
into the presence of the Nagual to ratify the engage- 
ment ; for this purpose they make them renounce 
God and his blessed Mother, instructing them before- 
hand not to be alarmed, or sign themselves with the 
cross : they are afterwards to embrace the Nagual 
affectionately, which, by some diabolical art or another, 
appears very tame, and fondly attached to them, al- 
though it may be a beast of a ferocious nature, as a 
lion, a tiger, &c. They persuade the children, by 
their infernal cunning, that this Nagual is an angel, 
sent by God to watch over their fortunes, to protect, 
assist, and accompany them ; and that it must be 
invoked upon all occasions, business, or occurrences, 
in which they may require its aid !" 

It is very clear, that the Nagualism above notified, 
is but a degenerate offshoot of that serpent worship, 
which is co-eval with the fall : yet, degenerate as it 
is, it is equally indisputable, that this good man's 
zeal outsteps far his judgment, the exaggerations of 
his fancy even committing him so far, as to make him 
imperceptibly contradict himself! 

Surely, were it a principle of action with those 
unfortunate beings to make their children, on their 
entrance upon active life, to renounce God, they would 
not teach them, at the same time, to reverence a 
brute creature, merely as being a subordinate servant 
of that God ! 

To reconcile the Bishop, therefore, to something 
like truth, I will suppose him to mean by the word 
God, where it first occurs, Christ, which is evident 
from the context, of " his blessed Mother :" and then 
the prohibition against the sign of f? the cross," must 



THE ROUND TO WE Its. 501 

be understood, exclusively, as in reference to him ; a 
conclusion which is confirmed by an additional refer- 
ence to that oath, which I have before mentioned, as 
still prevalent amongst the Irish. 

Bj/ the cross is the oath, accompanied by a trans- 
verse location of the fore-finger of one hand upon 
that of the other : and the addition alluded to is 
of Christ : which is never volunteered except when 
equivocation is suspected ; and then it is exacted as 
a matter of distinction between his cross and the more 
antecedent one ! 

But no further proof is requisite, to prove the 
Bishop's want of candour, than his withholding docu- 
ments from the public eye, which would appear to 
illustrate the subject. — " Although in these tracts and 
papers there are," says he, " many other things 
touching primitive paganism, they are not mentioned 
in this epitome, lest in being brought into notice, 
they should be the means of confirming more strongly 
an idolatrous superstition." He should have had 
more confidence in his own cause, and feel that — " If 
anything, in consequence of this scrutiny, totter and 
fall, it can only be the error which has attached itself 
to truth, encumbering and deforming it. Truth itself 
will remain unshaken, unsullied, fair, immortal!" 

Now, in the description of the ancient city, near 
Palenque, quoted before, I find some words, which 
prove an affinity between the worship of the ancient 
inhabitants of America and those of Ireland, and 
which rescue both from the imputations of bigotry. 
" I am Culebra" says Votan, one of the early princes, 
I believe, of Mexico, who wrote an historical tract in 
the Indian idiom, " because I am Chivim." 

The man's name, you perceive, was Votan, but his 



502 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



ambition was to be considered Culebra, or the snake, 
that is, the deity so personified : the mode whereby 
he sought to establish it is foreign from my inquiry. 

The Gadelglas of the ancient Irish was precisely 
similar to this Cidebra of the Americans : gad signifying 
a snake, or tortuosity : el y god ; and glas, green- — in all y 
the green snake-god! And conformably with this 
import, we are assured by a man, who knew very 
little as to the reason why, but whose testimony is 
here valuable in a matter of record, not of opinion ; 
viz., that the " Milesians, from the time they first con- 
quered Ireland, down to the reign of Ollamh Fodhla, 
made use of no other arms of distinction in their ban- 
ners than a serpent twisted round a rod, after the ex- 
ample of their Gadelian ancestors *." 

You have now the proof of " ivho put the snakes 
upon our ancient crosses?'' And, independently of 
such proof, the antiquity itself of all the traditions 
associating the serpent with the early memoirs of our 
ancestors was so great, as to appal even the monks ! 
And as they could not, in their system of transferring 
our history, bring down this serpent to the era of the 
saints, they resolved, at all events, to have him in 
their dispensation, and so made Moses the hero ! 

This they contrived by inventing the name of 
Qadel for one of our forefathers, and then trans- 
planting him to the coast of the Red Sea, just as the 
Legislator of the Jews was conducting them out of 
Egypt ! They then very unsacerdotally make a ser- 
pent bite him, in some part of the heel, but very gra- 
ciously afterwards restore him to sanity by Moses's 
interposition ! with a stipulation, however, that the 



Keating's History of Ireland, 'folio, p. 143. 



THE ROUND TOWEIiS. 503 

former sore should ever appear glass or green ! And 
thus was he called Gadelglas, or Gadel the Green !!! 

In truth, it was from this green snake-god, above 
explained, that the island obtained the designation 
of Emerald ; and not from the verdure of its soil, 
which is not greater than that of other countries. 

The Arabians have a tradition, that Enoch was the 
first who, after Enos^ son of Seth, son of Adam, wrote 
with a pen, in the use of which he instructed his 
children, saying to them additionally, " O, my sons, 
know that ye are Sabians /" 

Although the substance of the religion, couched 
under this designation, has been already explained, 
yet the origin of the name" itself remains yet to be 
unfolded. 

Then be it known, that in the sacred, i. e., Irish 
language, the word Sabh * has three significations — 
firstly, voluptuousness, or the yoni ; secondly, a snake, 
or sinuosity ; and thirdly, death, or life ! And in 
accordance with this triple import, if you roll back 
the leaves as far as page 229, you will find in the 
plate inserted there, and which has been transcribed 
from the sculptures of the ancient Palencian city 
before alluded to, those three symbols, viz., the yoni, 
the serpent, and death, all united in design, and illus- 
trating my development of that mysterious scene 
wherein — 

" Eve tempting Adam by a serpent was stung f." 

The sculpture itself is intended to portray the 

* Pronounced Sauv. This was the Seva of the Hindoos, by which, 
although they understood, indeed, as well generation as destruction to be 
symbolised ; yet, is it clear that they must have long lost the method of 
accounting for the reason why, otherwise than saying, that death and 
life meant the same thing ; that is, that the cessation of existence in 
one form was but the commencement of existence in another. 

f Freemasons' song. 



504 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



situation of those progenitors of the human species in 
the Garden of Eden. And yet, striking as it is, 
would its tendency remain ever a secret, were it not 
for the instrumentality of the Irish language ! 

" That the society of free and accepted Masons 
possess a grand secret among themselves is an un- 
doubted fact. What this grand secret is, or of what 
unknown materials it consists, mankind in general, 
not dignified with the order, have made the most 
ridiculous suppositions. The ignorant form inco- 
herencies, such as conferring with the devil, and 
many other contemptible surmises, too tedious to 
mention, and too dull to laugh at. While the better 
sort, and more polished part of mankind, puzzle them- 
selves with reflections more refined, though equally 
absurd. To dispel the opinionative mist from the eye 
of general error is the author's intention ; and however 
rash the step may be thought, that he, a mere atom 
in the grand system, should attempt so difficult, so 
nice a task, yet he flatters himself that he shall not 
only get clear over it, but meet with the united 
plaudits both of the public and of his brethren. And 
he must beg leave to whisper to the ignorant, as well 
as the judicious, who thus unwarrantably give their 
judgment, that the truth of this grand secret is as 
delicately nice as the element of air; though the phe- 
nomenon continually surrounds us, yet human sensa- 
tion can never feelingly touch it, till constituted to 
the impression by the masonic art. The principal, 
similar to the orb of light, universally warms and 
enlightens the principles, the first of which, virtue, 
like the moon, is heavenly chaste, attended by ten 
thousand star-bright qualifications. The masonic 
system is perfectly the emblem of the astronomic ; 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 505 

it springs from the same God, partakes of the same 
originality, still flourishes in immortal youth, and but 
with nature will expire *." 

The contortions of the snake were easily trans- 
ferred to the revolutions of the heavenly bodies. 
" When the ancients," says Boulanger, " found out 
the true cycle of the sun, they coined names by a.jeu 
de mots, or words, signifying its heat, or its course, 
that made up the number 365, as they had done 
before to make up 360. The name Sabasins, that 
has so much perplexed antiqnaries and etymologists, 
is no more than a numerical name, which was given to 
Jupiter and to Bacchus as periodical deities. When 
the suppliant was initiated into the mysteries of 
Sabasins, a serpent, the symbol of revolution, was 
thrown upon his breast. To XABOE, which the 
Greeks repeated so often in the feasts of Bacchus 
without wider standing the meaning of the words, meant 
no more than the cycle of the year, from the Chaldean 
Sabb circuire, verier e, &c. The ancient religion, 
which applied entirely to the motions of the heavens 
and periodical return of the stars, was for that reason 
named Sabianism, all derived from the Chaldee Seba, 
a revolution /' and this, though Boulanger knew it 
not, from the Irish Sabh, serpent, or pith. 

Sabaism, therefore, and Ophiolatreia were all one 
with Gadelianism ; and while, apparently, purporting 
to be the worship of the serpent and the stars, were, 
in reality the worship of the Sabh or Yoni— so that 
the dialogue, in Genesis, between Eve and the serpent, 
was, in truth, a parley between Eve and the Yoni: 
and the materials for the allegory were afforded by the 

* Ashe's Masonic Manual. 



506 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



fact of serpent and yoni being- both expressed in the 
sacred, i. e., Irish language, by one and the same name, 
just as the Lingam and the Tree of Knowledge have 
been before identified. 

The mystery, then, of our ancient escutcheon, viz., 
a serpent twisted round a rod, resolves itself into the 
Yoni embracing the U/tmam. 

Hence, too, it was that the portals of all the Egyp- 
tian temples were decorated with the impress of the 
circle and the serpent. You see also, why the seasons, 
at the equinoxes and solstices should have been 
marked upon the circle at page 225; and you further 
see the mysterious tendency of the Prophet's injunc- 
tion to his children, when he said, " Remember that 
ye are Sabians" to have been equivalent with — Keep 
constantly in view, that you are the offspring of con- 
cupiscence, and, by the suggestion of the serpent, 
begotten in sin, the penalty of which, as a breach of 
the Creator's commandments, is inevitable death, 
from which you are only extricated through the pro- 
mised Redeemer, emanating -from the same source 
which was before instrumental in entailing your 
sorrow ! 

Every syllable of this is hieroglyphically expressed 
upon the plate inserted at page 223, where you 
observe the cockatrice, or snake-god, placed at the 
bottom; over him the crescent, or mysterious boot, 
i. e.,yoni, the object seduced ; and, finally, the cross 
in triumph over both, intimating emancipation by the 
vicarious passion of God's own Son. 

This then is my answer to V. W.'s question, 
at page 225, where he asks, " What relation had this 
with the Nehustan, or brazen serpent, to which the 
Israelites paid divine honours in the time of Heze- 
kiah ?" 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 507 

From this Sabaism, or serpent worship, Ireland 
obtained the name of Tibholas, or Tivolas ; S and T 
being- commntable letters, Tibholas is the same as 
Sibholas, and this being derived from sibal, a circle, 
shows the name to have been equivalent with the 
land of circles, or revolutions, otherwise, both to the 
serpent and the planets. 

Those prophetic women of Etruria, designated 
Sybils, were named from the same cause, being- 
priestesses of the serpent, i. e., the Sabh, or Yoni — 
allegorically represented as married to Apollo, and 
gifted with a longevity of a thousand years. Here 
again thesame conversion of letters occurred, for the 
place which they inhabited was called from themselves, 
Tivola, corresponding to our Tivolas, the S and T 
being, as before explained, commutable, and b or 
bh being equivalent to v. 

Pythia is exactly synonymous with Sybil, meaning 
the priestess who presided oyer the Pith, which, like 
Sabhus, means as well serpent as yoni: and the 
oracle which she attended was called Delphi, from 
cle, divine, and phith, yoni — it being but a cave in the 
shape of that symbol*, over the orifice of which the 
priestess used to take her seat upon a sacred tripod, 
or' the religiously emblematic pyramid f, while the 
inspiring vapour issued from beneath through a tube, 
similar to that exhibited at page 460, and one end 
of which passing through the aperture, held fast the 
tripod, to which the priestess had been secured, so 
that she should not, in her delirium, relinquish the 
position. 

The great Samian philosopher, known as Pyth- 

* See page 282, note. f See page 2G8. 



508 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

agoras, only assumed this name in deference to those 
rites : for Pyth-agoras means one who expounds the 
mysteries of the pith — viz., death from its weakness, 
and redemption from its virtue. 

" Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, 
and shall call his name Immanuel *," was the spiritual 
substance of those expositions : the only difference 
being in that Isaiah spoke prospectively towards a 
lately verified issue, whereas the initiated took the 
promise from the moment of the fall : and of its 
partial accomplishment prior to our era, there can be 
no doubt, even from the writings of this prophet. 

On the opposite plate are three profile likenesses 
of Christ, as he appeared upon earth in human 
form — the first is a fac-simile from a brass medal, 
found at Brein Owyn, in the Isle of Anglesey, and 
published in Rowland's " Mona Antiqua." The 
inscription upon it has been translated, as meaning*, 
" Jesus the Mighty, this is the Christ and the man 
together." 

The second, likewise of brass, and found at Friar's 
Walk, near Cork, is now in the possession of a Mr. 
Corlett. — Inscription upon one side, " The Lord 
Jesus." — Upon the other, " Christ the King came 
in peace, and the light from the heaven was made 
life." 

You will please observe here, that he does not 
say the word was made life, but the light was made 
life. 

The third is of silver, and the inscription means, 
" Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ — the Lord and the 
Man together." 

The originals of these inscriptions are all in 

* Isaiah vii. 14. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



•309 









510 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

Hebrew, and the likenesses which accompany them, 
although on different metals, appear almost copies 
one of another : whereas the cruciform figures herein 
already inserted, have no one feature of correspond- 
ence whatsoever with them, but prove themselves, on 
the contrary, in every particular, an antecedent gene- 
ration . 

— -As everything else appertaining to the history 
of the Round Towers has already been explained, I 



* " The countenance of Christ was placid, handsome, and ruddy, so 
formed, however, as to inspire the beholders, not so much with love and 
reverence as with terror ; his locks were like the colour of a full ripe 
filbert nut (auburn), straight, and entire down to the ears, from thence 
somewhat curled down to the shoulders, but parted on the crown of the 
head after the manner of the Nazarites ; his forehead was smooth and 
shining, his eyes blue and sparkling, his nose and mouth decorous, and 
absolutely faultless, his beard, in colour like his locks, was forked, and 
not long." — Waserus, page 63. 

" At this time appeared a man, who is still living, a man endowed 
with great power, his name Jesus Christ. The people say that he is a 
mighty prophet ; his disciples call him the Son of God. He quickens 
the dead, and heals the sick of all manner of diseases and disorders. 
He is a man of tall stature, well proportioned, and the aspect of his 
countenance engaging, with serenity, and full of expression, so as to 
induce the beholders to~love and then to fear him. The locks of his hair 
are of the colour of a vine-leaf, without curl, and straight to the bottom 
of his ears, but from thence, down to his shoulders, curled and glossy, 
and hanging below his shoulders. His hair on the crown of the head 
disposed after the manner of the Nazarites. His forehead smooth and 
fair. His face without spot, and adorned with a certain tempered rud- 
diness. His aspect ingenuous and agreeable. His nose and his mouth 
in no wise reprehensible. His beard thick and forked, of the same 
colour as the locks of his head. His eyes blue and extremely bright. 
In reprehending and reproving, awful ; in teaching and exhorting, 
courteous and engaging ; a wonderful grace and gravity of countenance ; 
none saw him laugh, even once, but rather weep. In speaking, accurate 
and impressive, but sparing of speech. In countenance, the fairest 
among the children of men.'' — (Attributed to Lentulus, predecessor of 
Pilate in the government of Judea, recorded by Fabricius in his 
" Codex Apocryphus Novi Tcstamenti.") 



THE KOUXD TOWERS. oil 

shall now account for the difference of appropriation 
noticed at page 6. Having been all erected in honour 
of the Budh, they all partook of the Phallic form ; 
but as several enthusiasts personified this abstract, 
which, in consequence of the mysteries involved in the 
thought and the impenetrable veil which shrouded 
it from the vulgar, became synonymous with wisdom 
or wise man, it was necessary, of course, that the 
Towers constructed in honour of each should portray 
the distinctive attributes of the individuals specified. 
Hence the difference of apertures towards the praepu- 
tial apex, the crucifixions over the doors, and the 
absence or presence of internal compartments *. 

Those venerable piles vary in their elevation from 
fifty to one hundred and fifty feet. At some distance 
from the summit there springs out a sort of cover- 
ing, which, accompanied as it sometimes is with a cor- 
nice, richly sculptured in foliage, in imitation, if you 
must have it, prceputii humani, but such also was the 
pattern of the " nets of checker-work and wreaths of 
chain-work," which graced " the chapiters which 
were upon the top of the two pillars belonging 
to Solomon's temple"— terminates above in a sort of 
sugar-loaf crown, concave on the inside and convex 
on the outside. 

Their diameter at the base is generally about four- 

* The principal one I conceive to have been at the hill of Tara, which 
means the hill of the Saviour, and synonymous with mount Ida, which 
means the mount of the cross. — See page 453. 

" The predominant style and character of the Pillar Tower," says 
Montmorency, " in a great measure discloses the secret of its origin." 
It is astonishing how, after this, he and his pupils of the academy 
should labour to assimilate that secret to a dungeon. 

" LTobelisque que les Pheniciens dedicrent au Soleil dont le sommet 
spherique et la matiere (jtoient fort diffcrens des obt'lisqucs d'Egypte." — 
Ammian. Maucel. 



512 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



teen feet through, that inside measuring about eight, 
which decreases gradually, but imperceptibly, to the 
top, where it may be considered as about six feet in 
the interior. 

The distance of the door from the level of the 
ground varies from four to twenty-four feet. The 
higher the door the more irrefragable is the evidence 
of the appropriation of the structure to the purposes 
specified. The object was two-fold, at once to keep 
off profane curiosity and allow the votaries the undis- 
turbed exercise of their devotions ; and to save the 
relics deposited underneath from the irreverent gaze 
of the casual itinerant. 

Analogous to these would appear to have been the 
edifices which the Lord had in view when he said, 
<l Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, 
that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon*," which 
additionally proves the antiquity of the Irish philebeg ; 
for, as with any other costume, such a prohibition 
would be needless, it follows that the prevailing 
fashion, in the eastern habiliments, must have been 
diffuse and open in the nether extremes. 

I beg the reader will now be pleased to look back 
at the Tuath-de-danaan cross at page 358, and he 



* Exodus xx. 26. — The word altar does not mean what it is generally 
taken to express, a platform, but a high place, or standing column, 
what the Septuagint renders by the Greek word tr<rv\v, a pillar. And 
this was what the Israelites were forbid erecting to Jehovah, lest that 
their nakedness should be discovered while ascending by steps or ladders 
to the entrance overhead. 

The Gaurs have round towers erected of stone, and thither they 
carry their dead on biers ; within the tower is a staircase" with deep 
steps made in a winding form, and when the bearers are got within, the 
priests scale the walls by the help of ladders ; when they have dragged 
the corpse gently up with ropes, they then let it slide down the stair- 
case. — Dr. Hurd's Rites and Ceremonies, tyc. 



THE HOUND TOWERS. 513 

will at once see how it happened that the Goban Saer, 
who is there represented, has been imposed upon the 
Royal Irish Academy, or rather promulgated by them, 
as a woman ! viz., from the peculiarity of his dress ! 
being the distinctive badge of his sacerdotal order. 

Nor is it only the character of those sculptures, but 
the existence of any sculptures upon those relics, as 
well crosses as towers, that proves them to have been 
Tuath-de-danaan t for the reason why Jehovah for- 
bade the Israelites from using any tools upon the 
stones used in their religious edifices, was, that other 
nations had loaded theirs with sculptured images of 
different gods, which made Him say, " If thou wilt 
make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of 
hewn stone, for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou 
hast polluted it." 

In their masonic construction there is nothing in 
the Irish Towers appertaining to any of the four 
orders of architecture prescribed by the moderns. It 
is so also with those in the East. They approach 
nearest, however, to the Tuscan, and the reason of 
that similarity may be imagined from what I have 
already stated as to the Etrurians. 

Prepared stone is the material of which they are 
generally composed, and evidently, in some instances, 
brought from afar. Sometimes also they appear con- 
structed of an artificial substance, resembling a red- 
dish brick, squared, and corresponding to the compo- 
sition of the Round Towers of Mazunderan. Now if 
the monks possessed this secret, why were not the 
monasteries, the more important edifices, according to 
our would-be antiquarians, composed of the same 
elements ? And is it not strange that all elegance and 
extravagance should have been lavished upon the 

2 L 



514 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

appendages, while uncouthness, inelegance, want of du- 
rability, or other architectural recommendation are 
the characteristics of what they tell us were the prin- 
cipals ? Yet neither in the monasteries, nor in any 
other Christian building, do we meet with those ma- 
terials above described, either generally or partially, 
except where the ruins of a neighbouring Round 
Tower have made them available, which, in itself, is 
sufficient to overthrow, for ever, the anachronisms of 
those who would deny the existence of those temples 
anterior to the present era. 

But Christian edifices, they say, are generally 
found in their vicinity. Yes, and as I have already 
explained the reason why *, I forbear now rehearsing 
the fact. But even this stronghold of the moderns I 
cut away from them, by stating that at the " Giant's 
Ring," in the county Down, the indisputable scene of 
primordial veneration, we have an instance of a Round 
Tower, without any church hard by ! And while re- 
called by this circumstance, I must observe that the 
vitrification manifest within the walls of that struc- 
ture, arose from the burning of the dead bodies therein, 
and not from the indications of the sacred fire. 

With three exceptions, all have a row of apertures 
towards the top, just under the projecting roof, made 
completely after the fashion of those which Solomon 
had built, being windows of narrow lights f. In 
general the number is four, and then they correspond 
to the cardinal points. In three instances there is 
one aperture towards the summit, in one instance 
there occurs five, in one six, in one seven, in one 
eight. 

Inside they are perfectly empty from the door 

* See pages 7 and 8. f 1 Kings vi. 4. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 51.5 

upwards, but most of them divided, either by rests or 
preceding stones, into lofts or stories, varying in num- 
ber from three to eight. In the temple of Solomon 
we find the same, for " within, in the wall of the 
house, he made narrowed rests round about, that the 
beams should not be fastened in the walls of the 
house *." And the images which I have shown to 
have been cupboarded upon these rests, were no- 
thing more than what Solomon himself did, when 
" he carved all the walls of the house round about 
with carved figures of cherubims, and palm-trees, and 
open flowers, within and without f."' 

In a future publication I intend to show a more 
startling correspondence between our Round Towers 
and some other parts of Solomon's temple. Mean- 
while I wish it to be borne in mind, — as in some 
degree accounting for the correspondence — that Solo- 
mon's architect was a Sidonian. 

A striking perfection observable in their construc- 
tion is the inimitable perpendicular invariably main- 
tained. No architect of the present day, I venture to 
affirm, could observe such regularity. Nelson's pillar 
itself has been proved to vary somewhat from the 
perpendicular line ; but the keenest eye cannot trace 
a deviation, in a single instance, from amongst the 
whole of those Sabian monuments. Even the tower 
of Kilmacdugh, one of the largest in the kingdom, 
having from some accident, earthquake, or other 
cause, been forced to lean terrifically to one side ; 
yet, miraculous to mention, retains its stability as firm 
as before : such was the accuracy of its original ele- 
vation %. 

* 1 Kings vi. 6. + 1 Kings vi. 29. 

% The Tower of Pisa bears no comparison to this edifice. 



516 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



If asked how it was I conceive them to have been 
constructed ? I should answer, by a scaffolding raised 
gradually from within. The expense in this case 
would be infinitely less, and the labour also. It would 
be very easy to let fall a plumb-line at various inter- 
vals of height, by which at all times the perpendicular 
may be ascertained, and the masonry carried on by, 
what may be called, overhanding, while the cement 
employed in giving solidity to the whole, and which is 
the direct counterpart of the Indian chunan, bids 
defiance to the efforts of man to dissever, except by 
the exertion of extraordinary power. 

That this was the mode in which their erection was 
effected, is evident in the instance of Devenish Tower, 
which, from the elegance of its cut-stone exterior, 
would seem to negative the idea of their being built 
from within. But a judicious eye cannot but at once 
discern that near the top, where it is probable that 
one or two of the artists may have come out, by the 
help of some contrivance devised for the purpose, 
the execution and finish which the workmanship dis- 
plays, is incomparably superior to that of any of the 
lower parts. In other instances, where the ancient 
top having been removed, a modern one has been 
substituted, the case is very different indeed. 

The cohesiveness of all these columns will be best 
estimated by the fact of the Round Tower at Clon- 
dalkin having firmly stood its ground when, in the 
year 1786-7, the powder-mill explosion, which took 
place within twenty-four feet of its base, shivered to 
annihilation every other structure within its influence ; 
nay, extended its violence so far as to shatter the 
windows in some of the streets of Dublin. That at 
Maghera also lay unbroken after its fall, exhibiting 



THE UOL'XD TOWERS. .j 1 ? 

to the spectator the almost appalling spectacle of a 
gigantic cannon ! 

That both Indians and Irish performed circular 
dances around them, typical of the motions of the 
heavenly bodies, is highly probable, as we have still 
the name of a particular movement, apparently that 
practised on the occasion, still amongst us in common 
use, viz., Rinke-teumpcil, or the temple dance : and that 
they otherwise honoured them by performing penances 
around them, is evident from the name of Turrish, 
which means a religious circuit round a tower ! ap- 
plied afterwards by the Catholics to any penitential 
round. And we have the authority of Sanchoniathon, 
when talking of the creation, for stating that " the 
next race consecrated pillars — that they prostrated 
themselves before them, and made annual libations to 
them*!" 

These, I conceive, were the halcyon days of Ire- 
land's legendary and romantic greatness. In this 
sequestered isle, aloof from the tumults of a bustling 
world, this Tuath-de-danaan colony, all of a reli- 
gious race, and all disposed to the pursuits of litera- 
ture, united into a circle of international love, and 
spread the fame of their sanctity throughout the 
remotest regions of the universe. That its locality 
was familiar to the Brahmins of India I make no 
earthly question — that it was that sacred island 
which they eulogised so fondly, and spoke of with 
such raptures, I am sanguinely satisfied — and equally 
oj b 

* The holy wells also, with the practice of hanging pieces of cloth upon 
the branches of an overhanging tree, all belonged to the Tuath-de- 
danaan ceremonial. The early Christians took possession each of them 
of one of these wells, and are now, by prescription, recognised as theiv 
patron saints, and even supposed to have been their founders ! 



518 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



convinced am I, that it was that beatifying region, 
whose wide-spread holiness, and far-famed renown, 
made such an impression on the minds of Orpheus 
and of Pindar, when those divine bards, speaking 
of its Hyperborean inhabitants, thus enchantingly 
sung — 

" On sweet and fragrant herbs they feed, amid 
verdant and grassy pastures, and drink ambrosial 
dew, divine potation : all resplendent alike in coeval 
youth ; a placid serenity for ever smiles on their 
brows and lightens in their eyes ; the consequence of 
a just temperament of mind and disposition, both in 
the parents and in the sons, inclining them to do what 
is great, and to speak what is wise. Neither disease 
nor wasting old age infest this holy people, but 
without labour, without war, they continue to live 
happy, and to escape the vengeance of the cruel 
Nemesis*." 

Though clothed in the cadence of measured phra- 
seology, and decked in the charms of an imaginative 
style, this is scarcely more beautiful than the simple 
summary of the Tuath-de-danaan moral code, as 
given you at page 112, and of which, in truth, this is 
but the paraphrase. For instance, they fed, it is 
stated, a on sweet and fragrant herbs," because they 
were prevented by their first commandment from 
eating " anything endowed with life "f\" They drank 
" ambrosial clew," because their fifth commandment 
forbade their touching u any intoxicating liquor." And 

* c\\ III 3flj .3TdDU*lJri£ 

* ~Mo7va. o olx. u.7roba.j/.u Tf/otfois ivrt fftpiTipoiri, vrosvra es X°% oi '^^■^ i ' je >' v Xvgav n 
Yioou xava^cci t kvXuv oomovtcci icc(pva <rs ^nusia Kofio; avaoniravTi; iiXumva. %otnv iv 
cf^awuj. votroi o ovrs yn^u; ovXof&tvov nix^u-ru hgu, yiviu,- wsva/v at xc&i /na%uv ctTig 
o.y.ioicrt (pvyoyris w7ti^htx,o\> Nifti/riv. — Pyth. X. 59, 

> Even among the vegetables, they abstained from beans, as did the 
Pythagoreans after them, ob similitudinem virilibus genitalibus. 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 519 

the nealthful aspects they exhibited were but the 
natural result of temperate habits and virtuous de- 
meanour. 

" The simplest flow' ret of the vale, 
The simplest note that swells the gale, 
The common air, the earth, the skies, 
To them were opening Paradise ! 

Five hundred years after the period of their 
dethronement, while the influence of their example 
still continued to operate, we are told by the Dinn 
Seanchas, that " The people deemed each other's 
voices sweeter than the warblings of a melodious 
harp, such peace and concord reigned amongst them, 
that no music could delight them more than the sound 
of each other's voices." 

With these compare what Cambrensis, who was no 
friend, has said of this island, about two thousand 
years after. " Of all climes," says he, " Ireland is 
the most temperate ; neither Cancer's violent heat is 
felt there in summer, nor Capricorn's cold in winter ; 
but in these particulars it is so blessed, that it seems 
as if Nature looked upon this zephyric realm with its 
most benignant eye. It is so temperate," he adds, 
"that neither infectious fogs, nor pestilential winds, are 
felt there, so that the aid of doctors is seldom looked 
for, and sickness rarely appears except among the 
dying." 

The repose of this happy people being at length 
disturbed by the ungenial inundation of the Scythian 
intruders, the ritual of the temple worship was pre- 
cipitated apace ; and this, if I mistake not, " satis- 
factorily removes the uncertainty in which the origin 
and uses of those ancient buildings has been hereto- 



520 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

fore involved*.'' For the Scythians being warriors f 
rather than students, and looking with distrust upon 
the emblematic images of their temple-serving prede- 
cessors, which they considered to be idolatry, did all 
in their power by legislative, as well as military 
enactments, to efface every trace thereof; so that 
in a few years the temple, or tower, worship be- 
came utterly extinct, and — more than annihilated — 
forgotten. 

Instead thereof, they substituted the worship of 
firc%> which, though their predecessors were far from 
recognising as a deity, yet they always showed to it 
some reverential respect : and this approximation of 
sentiment, on both parts, contributed to, what may be 
called, a passive reconciliation : the victors assuming 
the mastery of the soil; and the vanquished, in 
deference to their high literary repute, being conti- 
nued as superintendents of the national education, as 
well as the practical followers of all trades and pro- 
fessions. 

It was so also at Rome, when Romulus dislodged 
the Pelasgi, who, we are told by Festus, had them- 
selves some time previously, under the name of 
" Sacrani," that is, the religious caste, corresponding 

* See conditions of advertisement in Preface. 

f " You may read in Lucian, in that sweet dialogue, which is entitled 
4 Toxaris ; or, of Friendship,' that the common oath of the Scythians 
was by the sword, and by the fire, for that they accounted those two 
speciall divine powers, which should worke vengeance on the perjurers. 
So doe the Irish at this day, when they goe to battaile, say certaine 
prayers or charmes to their swords, making a crosse therewith upon the 
earth, and thrusting the points of their blades into the ground, thinking 
thereby to have the better successe here in fight. Also they use com- 
monly to swear by their swords. "■ — Spenser. 

% See pages 81, 82. 



THK ROUND TOWERS. 52 1 

to " Irish," which signifies the same thing, drove the 
Ligures and Siculi from Septimontio, i. e., Rome. 

The only use now made of those Sabian edifices, 
after stifling the religion for which they were de- 
signed, was, we may suppose, to promote the study 
of astronomical science, for which they were admi- 
rably adapted, and with which their original destina- 
tion was inseparably interwoven *. But as the sti- 
mulus of religion was wanting for the prosecution of 
those researches, we cannot be surprised that this 
part of their purpose too, sharing the fate of its col- 
lateral helpmate, insensibly repined under the altered 
aspect of the scene ; for, to apply to it what has been 
said of the great scheme of the creation itself, viz., 
that — 

" if each system in gradation roll 

Alike essential to the amazing whole, 
The least confusion — but in one — not all, 
That system only, but the whole must fall.'' 

The knowledge of this delightful study^ however, 
did not yet completely die away ; it formed still 
an essential in the education of every Irish youth ; 
and the remnant of our language, at this very mo- 
ment, shows how piously attentive were its framers 
to that divine precept which told them, that the 
*' lights of the firmament of heaven were for signs 
and for seasons, and for days and for years.'' 

The profligate degeneracy of the Druids, however, 
tended to bring this also into disesteem. 

This order of priests got so overbearing here, 
grasping at not only high ecclesiastical power, but 

* They were afterwards degraded to every possible purpose they could 
be made to subserve : but I speak above of the time hnmi'diately after 
their overthrow. 

2 M 



522 THE ROUND TOWERS. 

also intermeddling- in secular transactions, that they 
made themselves obnoxious to the great body of the 
people, and a disregard both to the literature and 
the religion which they inculcated was the inevitable 
result. To this I ascribe the plebeian war of Ireland, 
a.d. 47, that deplorable state of a country, when 
faction and rage usurp the place of counsel and dis- 
cretion ! when commerce stagnates ! confidence de- 
cays ! when lust stalks abroad to desecrate every- 
thing holy ! and all is doubt, suspicion, melancholy, 
and death ! 

How beautifully and how aptly, but yet, for him- 
self, how unwisely, did the philosophic Callisthenes 
apply the sentiment of Euripedes to Philip of Ma- 
cedon, at Alexander's Feast?- — viz., 

When civil broils declining states surprise, 
• There the worst men to highest honours rise. 

[ 

Many virtuous persons, we are told, opposed them- 
selves to the encroachments of this degenerate hie- 
rarchy. When Conlah, in his retreat from the glitter 
of life, betook himself to an humble cottage, and de- 
voted the faculties of his comprehensive mind to 
philosophical pursuits and the improvement of his 
species, the greatest praise which the annalist, in re- 
cording such worth, could bestow, was, "She do rinni 
an choin bhliocht-ris inna Druwdh ;" that is, It is he 
that disputed against the Druids! 

The Books, however, of their predecessors, the 
Boreades, still remained, and the knowledge of astro- 
nomy was kept alive by their perusal. But of these 
we were despoiled, very shortly after, by that mis- 
taken piety elsewhere deplored. Some few treatises 
even then must have escaped, and their effect was 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 0"2^ 

best illustrated, as shown before, by the unprece- 
dented success with which the Gospel dispensation 
was hailed in this island. 

I have before shown the instance of Fergil or Virgil, 
who, in the eighth century, maintained the rotund 
and true form of the earth, when the rest of Europe 
were ignorant on the subject. " He was," says Sir 
James Ware, " the author of a Discourse on the An- 
tipodes, which he most truly held, though against 
the received opinion of the ancients, who imagined 
the earth to be a plain." 

In this sweeping ban upon the ancients, however, 
Sir James must not include the ancient Irish, whose 
hereditary doctrine upon the subject it is evident that 
Fergil did here only give utterance to ; and dearly 
did he suffer for it ; his life, like that of Galileo, hav- 
ing been forfeited thereby, at the hands of the same en- 
lightened tribunal. This was enough to put the last 
extinguisher upon the cultivation, or at least avowal, of 
the Irish notions of astronomy. It is astonishing, not- 
withstanding, what an instinctive thirst still lurked 
in the Irish mind for the sublimities of this pursuit *. 

07 

* " I had not been a week landed in Ireland from Gibraltar, where I 
had studied Hebrew and Chaldaic, under Jews of various countries and 
denominations, when I heard a peasant girl say to a boor standing by 
her, Fcctch an maddin nag, (Behold the morning star,) pointing to the 
planet Venus, the maddina nag of the Chaldean. Shortly after, being 
benighted with a party in the mountains of the western parts of the 
county of Cork, we lost the path, when an aged cottager undertook to be 
our guide. It was a fine starry night. In our way, the peasant point- 
ing to the constellation Orion, he said that was Caomai, or the armed 
king; and he described the three upright stars to be his spear or sceptre, 
and the three horizontal stars, he said, were his sword-belt. I could not 
doubt of this being the Cimah of Job, which the learned Costard asserts 
to be the constellation Orion." — Vallancey. 



524 



THE ROUND TOWERS. 



Smith mentions an instance of a " poor man near 
Blackstones, in the county Kerry, who had a tolerable 
notion of calculating the epacts, golden number, do- 
minical letter, the moon's phases, and even eclipses, 
although he had never been taught to read English." 
The author of this Essay has known many such cha- 
racters ; — one in particular who, from his great pro- 
ficiency in the art, had obtained for himself the 
honourable designation of the Kerry Star. 



THE END. 






Wilmam Clowes, Printer, Duke-street, Lambeth. 






o[8 

'io no; 
►I leoinim 

ko lodius 9 dT 

OBI 



ERRORS AND OMISSIONS. 

Page 28, Fourteen lines from bottom, insert " the fourth century of be- 
tween the words " before" and " the Christian light." 
90, Three lines from bottom, instead of " Wells' ' read " Kells." 
106, End of note J, instead of " and meaning sprung from" read 

" O'meaning sprung from." 
207, Sixteen lines from top, insert " among" between the words " the 
persons," for Herodotus gives the credit there alluded to, to 
Melampus. 
229, Eleven lines from top, instead of " its second" read " its first." 
238, Nine lines from bottom, instead of " this day" read " Christmas day." 
240, Eight lines from top, instead of "impregnable" read "impracticable." 
252, Seven lines from top, instead of " inadvertently" read " inadvertedly," 
297, Note J, erase " See Appendix." 

406, Five lines from top, instead of il Tenan" read " Conan." 
406, Four lines from bottom, instead of " demonstrative" read " demon- 
strable." 
418, Append the name " Mackenzie'' after note t. 



■'■ 



7 



Just published by the same Author, price 1'2.?. 

PHCENICIAN IRELAND/ 



CRITICAL REVIEWS OF THE ABOVE. 

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the alleged high origin and early eminence of his countrymen.'' — Dis- 
patch, June 16, 1833. 

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" Phoenician Ireland is a work of great curiosity and extraordinary 
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